Fte Des Voisins: Make Friends At France's Most Heartwarming Festival

La Fête des Voisins (Festival of Neighbours or Neighbours’ Day) is one of the world’s most considerate festivals. Originated in France with a tragic backstory, it aims to bring neighbours closer together. Here’s all you need to know about this heartwarming celebration.

France recently welcomed its 19th edition of La Fête des Voisins on May 25th, 2018. It’s aimed at bringing neighbours closer together, even if just for one day. The idea first originated in France, but now warms people’s hearts across the globe. What’s fabulous is that it usually involves an array of delicious snacks.

Fête des Voisins is France’s most heartwarming festival

Even if all it inspires is for people to go beyond the usual ‘bonjour’, which is typically the most people in busy Parisian apartment blocks can often muster, then the festival has achieved what it set out to do.
The event’s official international website states that the celebration marks ‘the opportunity to reconnect with the values of solidarity, brotherhood and friendship that should be at the forefront of neighbourly relations’. Of course, in today’s fast-paced society, such relations of solidarity between neighbours are often placed on the sidelines.
The website encourages people to make ‘a simple gesture’ on this day, which can be anything from holding a door open for someone, helping a neighbour carry their shopping bags, saying ‘bonjour’, right through to inviting your neighbours for lunch or dinner. Some neighbours even bake cakes.

This heartwrenching fact spurred him to want to increase neighbourly love, so as to prevent such tragic stories from reoccurring in the future. In 1999, he invented La Fête des Voisins in his block of flats to meet over drinks and a snack on that day, an idea that has since captivated both the nation and beyond.

All it takes is a quick trip to the boulangerie and a knock on your neighbour’s door to bring a smile to their face. If you’re feeling keen, then try baking a treat yourself.

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