Bon appetit: Paris's Champs-Elysees to host giant picnic

People take part in a giant open-air picnic on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. Around 4,000 people were selected to have lunch on a 216-meter-long red-and-white chequered rug, the "world's largest tablecloth". People take part in a giant open-air picnic on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. Around 4,000 people were selected to have lunch on a 216-meter-long red-and-white chequered rug, the "world's largest tablecloth". JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP

 


Paris, France -Paris's most famous street the Champs-Elysees is to host a giant open-air picnic as the French capital's iconic boulevard seeks to reinvent itself.

Nearly 273,000 people have applied to take part in the event which will see a 216-metre-long red-and-white chequered rug cover the picnic ground and feature free packed meals from organisers' eight partner restaurants.

Around 4,000 people have been selected to participate in the "le grand pique-nique", with each guest invited to bring up to six additional people and choose one of two sittings, at noon or 2:00 pm.

The "world's largest tablecloth", made from 25 pieces of recycled fibre, will be assembled on site by 150 people, the organisers said.

The aim of the event was to show that the Champs-Elysees, famous for its expensive boutiques and restaurants, was not only good for shopping, said Marc-Antoine Jamet, president of the organiser, the Champs-Elysees Committee.

"It's a way of telling Parisians: 'Come back to the Champs-Elysees'", he said.

In 2023, the association transformed the avenue into an open-air mass "dictation" spellathon, pitting thousands of France's brainiest bookworms against one another.

With 1,779 desks laid out on the boulevard, organisers had sought to break the world record for a dictation spelling competition.

A top tourist attraction, the avenue has been gradually abandoned by locals in recent years.

The historic UGC Normandie cinema, which opened in 1937, is set to close in June due to decline in business.

On Monday, the Committee was due to present a 1,800-page study of possible ways to reinvent the Champs-Elysees.

pyv-as/yad

© Agence France-Presse

Dont Miss

The Foreign Post is the newspaper of the International Community in the Philippines, published for foreign residents, Internationally-oriented Filipinos, and visitors to the country. It is written and edited to inform, to entertain, occasionally to educate, to provide a forum for international thinkers.

READ MORE ...


Contact Us

3/F Rolfem Building, 4680 Old Sta. Mesa
corner Bagong Panahon Streets
Sta. Mesa, Manila, Philippines
T: (+ 632) 8713 - 7182 , (+632) 8404-5250
advertise@theforeignpost.info

 

Graffiti