Pitgam, its central pond and its carnival embalmed with the smell of barbecues. Like every year in April, the small town of 900 inhabitants, near Dunkirk, in the North, had the honor, on Sunday, of closing the carnival season, with an original tradition. Here, it is the women who are placed in the front line of the gang. And it’s not an easy task when you know that this ritual parade is characterized by a joyous uproar where the objective is, precisely, to bend this first line by a collective push.
Ten o’clock in the morning, the first carnival-goers arrive after a short half-hour walk in the Flemish countryside. “The village is completely closed for the carnival, explains Brigitte Decriem, the mayor of the town. It’s a big logistics because we welcome around 6,000 people and the preparations start a week before.
A first for three years
Already, the first barbecues are set up. The beer pumps are pierced. And about fifty volunteers are busy preparing the sandwiches. “We do about 600,” says one of the shadow workers in one of the pop-up bars. The last moments of calm are savored. As soon as the band and the music arrive, everything will capsize.
This year is also the year of renewal because, because of the Covid-19, the festivities have been suspended for three years. So, you have to take your bearings. An electrical outlet that blew, a supply to be organized for the rescue… Madam Mayor is at the oven and the mill, another tourist attraction of the sector, moreover.
In Pitgam, you have to believe that the Brigittes are queens. Apart from the village councilor, it is another Brigitte who is at the origin of this carnival, created in the early 1990s. “Brigitte Dubrulle founded the association Les Peirates, explains Vinciane Gauthier, its current president. At the start, there were around a hundred carnival-goers, but already, unlike the other carnivals in Dunkirk, it was the women who were in the front line. »
Herring and Bergues cheese for dessert
Since then, they have never let go. And this year, a little new one joined them for the traditional morning preview. Brigitte (one more) Courdier is the wife of the former drum major of the Pitgam band. Pascal I – that was his name – and died in May 2020. “This is the first time that I find myself on the front line, I never came in the morning in the time of my little man. It was his world, ”she admits, with a heavy heart.
While carnival-goers crowd around the smoke of improvised barbecues, especially in front of the church, the music of the sound systems has now invaded the city. In the afternoon, it will be the turn of the band, led by a new drum major, José, to resume service for a two-hour organized ruckus. And always women on the front line to resist the waves of carnival goers.
To reward all these people, the mayor, true to her habit, will shower the crowd with herring and Bergues cheese. History to reinforce the flavor of a carnival like no other.