Ah, the Mirabelle festivals! The queen, the flower parade, the events… The 71st edition which has just ended shows how much the people of Metz are still attached to this folkloric event, even if it could not take place under the usual conditions this year . But did you know that in the 80s, elected officials from Reunion Island found this celebration so nice that they were inspired by it to create an event on their island? This is the story of the short-lived Letchis festival.
Back to the beginning of the 80s. René-Paul Victoria, then deputy mayor of Saint-Denis de la Réunion, came to visit his brother Jean, a railway worker in Jouy-aux-Arches. It’s summer in metropolitan France and the chosen one discovers the festivities organized by Metz around the mirabelle plum. Back on his island, he created the Letchis festival, organized in December, in high season, with a queen, majorettes and a flower parade.
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A twinning between Metz and Saint-Denis de la Réunion
And very quickly, close relations were formed between Metz and Saint-Denis. They led to the signing of a twinning in 1986. For several years, Metz welcomed the Queen of Letchis on the occasion of the Mirabelle festivals. In December, our queen of Lorraine travels 10,000 kilometers in the opposite direction to represent Metz at the Letchis festival. Twinning also takes other forms. This is how the Saint-Denis de la Réunion room was created in Metz. Conversely, a “Place de Metz” was inaugurated on the island in the Indian Ocean.
But little by little, the links are loosening. Locally, the Letchis festival is highly contested. It is organized on December 20, a public holiday in memory of the abolition of slavery in Réunion. A commemoration that still divided at the time, and that only a few left-wing municipalities celebrate. For opponents of the RPR mayor of Saint-Denis, this celebration is therefore experienced as a provocation. It was definitely abandoned in 1989, when the left took over the town hall of Saint-Denis.
