Crowds of revelers began bidding farewell to a 2023 marked by the climate crisis, the rise of artificial intelligence and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
In Sydney, self-proclaimed “New Year capital of the world”, more than a million revelers crowded the harbor foreshore, with city authorities and police warning that all vantage points were occupied. People gathered at iconic sites across the city, defying unusually wet weather, and were not disappointed when the Harbor Bridge and other landmarks were lit up and colored by eight tons of fireworks . Pyrotechnics also lit up the skies of Auckland, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Manila.
Good-natured atmosphere on the “Champs”
Seven months before the Paris Olympic Games, the big evening crowd gathered on Sunday December 31 on the Champs-Elysées for the festivities and New Year’s fireworks, with reinforced security measures in a context of threat terrorist ” very high “. The 700,000 to a million people expected on the Parisian avenue had to comply with very strict security controls put in place by the police, who cordoned off every artery surrounding the avenue, with bag checks and pat-downs. systematic.
A few months before the 2024 Olympic Games, New Year’s Eve on the Champs-Elysées serves as a test of the capital’s ability to welcome several hundred thousand spectators without incident. “For the moment things are going as calmly as possible but there are a lot of people, more people than last year”declared the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, at 11 p.m., announcing at this stage some 69 arrests in France.
On the Parisian avenue, the atmosphere is friendly, with many families. Around the filtering points, traffic jams form even if access is ultimately relatively quick. The flasks are emptied, glass bottles and the introduction of alcohol prohibited. The street vendors were also declared persona non grata and queues quickly formed on the sidewalk around the few fast food stores on the avenue.
In Tel Aviv, celebrations marked by mourning
In Tel Aviv, Israel, on one of the city’s busiest streets, many young people went out to bars and restaurants to celebrate the new year. Ran Stahl, 24, decided to work that evening in the wine bar where he has been working for a few weeks; he doesn’t have the heart to ” to dance “ and have fun “because the minute I start dancing, sadness and mourning return”says the young man, whose friend died at the Tribe of Nova music festival on October 7. “People want to celebrate tonight” says the young man during his service, “but I can’t be as happy as I could be”.