Amazing. As the 2023 edition of the Braderie de Lille, one of the largest flea markets in Europe, opened this Saturday, a world record was broken. And not least. As advertised France Blue North, which also organized the event, a new world record for the longest human caterpillar was set with the participation of 4,623 people. Bailiffs were able to confirm this record.
And the party is not over. Far from there. With some 8,000 exhibitors, junk dealers and traders concentrated mainly in the center and in the old town, Lille will live to the rhythm of the clearance sale until Sunday 6 p.m.
The opportunity to eat mussels
Since 2017, the sale of any new product or object (excluding sedentary businesses) has been “strictly prohibited”, recalled the town hall during a press conference in July. Lille also invites restaurateurs to make heaps of mussels, very much consumed on this occasion, in the perimeter of the clearance sale and to report them to allow their recycling.
Since 2018, these shells have been collected and recycled by the City in partnership with a local company specializing in the creation of objects from recycled materials. Cleaned then crushed, these are notably transformed into slabs of tiling.
Safety first
The event will be “extremely secure”, said Martine Aubry. Also, 611 concrete blocks and 1,500 barriers are deployed to secure the access doors and traffic will be prohibited to vehicles inside the perimeter.
In addition, “nearly 3,000 state agents”, police, gendarmes, customs officers, soldiers, are mobilized “to ensure the security of the event”, indicated the prefecture of the North in a press release.
Several political figures will be present on the occasion of the sale, such as the national secretary of the ecologists Marine Tondelier who will participate in a press conference at 12:30 p.m. on the party stand. Martine Aubry will begin her traditional Braderie tour departing from the Town Hall at 2:30 p.m. Finally, the coordinator of France Insoumise, Manuel Bompard, and the head of the LFI deputies, Mathilde Panot, will give a speech at 4 p.m.