What's the new normal?

If it's the old one if possible.

When the Roman foyer echoes with conversations, so that you can hardly understand the speaker in the Kaisersaal, as soon as the door opens briefly.

Because then the babble of voices echoes in from outside.

Is that bad?

Not if, after a forced two-year break, it means that you can meet again in person at the city's New Year's reception.

After all, a good 1,300 guests have reported back, as many as before the pandemic.

Bernhard Biener

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung

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The return of the old normal is when politicians, entrepreneurs, trade unionists, church people, volunteers, honorary consuls and club representatives move together at bar tables or on the benches in the Römerkeller.

And the 62nd Sachsenhausen Fountain Queen Gabriele I meets the Goldstein Rose King Kevin I.

There is no shortage of mayors either.

There is one difference compared to previous years: there is no acting player.

Petra Roth (CDU) and Andreas von Schoeler (SPD) could report on their experiences at the time, and almost a dozen potential town hall chiefs are also there.

Although these are far from all candidates for the election on March 5th.

However, the city is not without a leader, because there is also Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg (The Greens).

The mayor has temporarily assumed the role of mayor, which is why she is the one who greets the guests in the Kaisersaal and announces how proud she is of the city.

But not because of their hidden beauty, the economic performance or the great achievements of the four-party coalition, as one would expect in a New Year's speech.

But because it has proven to be a "safe haven" for more than 10,000 people from Ukraine.

With demonstrations and rallies, the citizens had shown their attitude and stood up for self-determination, tolerance, democracy, peace and freedom.

That, and human rights, is also the issue in Iran, says Eskandari-Grünberg, who herself fled from there 37 years ago.

In the sign of the Ukraine war and the oppression in Iran

The mayor speaks about the climate, the Paulskirche anniversary and diversity, which is one of Frankfurt's strengths.

And she herself is glad that she was able to achieve her position in the city.

But despite all the joy of seeing each other again after a two-year break, the New Year's reception is also marked by the war in Ukraine, about which the Ukrainian Consul General Vadim Kostiuk will speak at the end, and the repression in Iran.

It is the topic not only of the mayor but also of keynote speaker Navid Kermani.

He mentions Eskandari-Grünberg in particular because she is not a representative of the second generation, but has already fought politically in Iran.

"The Mayor of Frankfurt is a former political prisoner," says Kermani.

The writer and orientalist, who was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in Frankfurt in 2015, reports on the women who took off the headscarf.

It's about women's rights, freedom and the fight against environmental pollution.

According to Kermani, many initially said that the current movement could not be stopped and that the regime's willingness to use extreme brutality should not be underestimated.

He himself was skiing at the weekend when "the news broke in the middle of the day" that two more people had been executed in Iran.

Later he received a farewell letter from one of the executed via WhatsApp.

He had announced that he would say at the foot of the gallows: women, life, freedom.

Kermani ends his speech with this exclamation and receives long applause.