Mardi Gras, Feast of Federation, Nol, and La Toussaint

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Mardi Gras, Feast of Federation, Noël, and La
Toussaint

• Travis Mialback and Stefanie Pennington

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Feast of Federation Beginning

• The Day is celebrated every July 14th since 1880.
• The Feast of the Federation is also known as
  French National Day.
• The day is used to commemerate the day in which
  the storming of Bastille had happened ending the
  rule of absolute monarchy in France.

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Feast of Federation

• The French has many different traditions that
  they practice in order to celebrate the Feast of
  Federation.
• They celebrate by allowing the troops to perform
  a parade at the Champs-Elysées. Many people from
  all around France come to see the parade.

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Feast of Federation

• The military parade is a huge celebration for the
  Feast of the Federation.
• The parade happens in the presence of the
  President and plenty of governmental officials.
• The President will actually inspect each of the
  troops personally himself of July 13th before the
  parade.

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Feast of Federations

• Other traditions they celebrate are very similar
  to the ones we celebrate here in America. They
  also use fireworks to celebrate the national
  holiday.
• One great site you can observe on the Feast of
  Federation is the fireworks shooting off the
  Eiffel Tower.
• The small display of fireworks happens on July
  13th while the large display like the one to the
  right happens on July 14th.

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Feast of Federation

• The parade will consist of about 4000 troops.
• In some occasions the French will invite several
  countries to come and participate in the
  celebrations of Feast of Federation.
• For an example in 1994 France invited a small
  regiment of German soldiers to march in the
  parade.

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Feast of Federation

• Other displays and consist of using on ground
  military vehicles. Like the ones to the right
  displayed.
• They also have an air display as well. The air
  fleet of France performs various demonstrations.

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Feast of Federation

• Another event that takes place during the Feast
  of Federation is the Presidential Address.
• The Presidential Address is used to inform and
  educate the public about situations going on in
  the country.
• The following quotes are from addresses in the
  past years.
• From July 14th 1995 President Jacques Chirac, la
  situation est depuis un an en voie damélioration
  et il convient maintenant daccélérer les
  réformes indispensables

• The quote translated means the situation is the
  past year being improved and should now
  accelerate necessary reforms.
• The quote was referring to the situation of
  elderly care and Medicare at the current time of
  France.

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Feast of Federation

• More quotes that Presidents made in past
  addresses.
• The following quote comes from Jacques Chirac in
  2005.
• The situation he was addressing was the social
  divide and growth of France.

• La fracture sociale, dans létat actuel des
  choses, a-t-il dit, ne se réduit pas depuis cinq
  ans. Le nombre des allocataires du RMI ne fait
  quaugmenter. Nous voyons le chômage diminuer, la
  richesse augmenter, mais sa répartition
  contestée, notamment par les gens qui ont fait le
  plus defforts, la génération entre trente et
  cinquante ans, qui a assumé la période charnière,
  et qui ne se voit pas récompensée. "

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Feast of the Federation

• The quote translates to The social divide, in
  the current state of affairs, he said, is not
  reduced in five years. The number of beneficiarie
  of the RMI is increasing. We see unemplyement
  diminshing, the wealth increases, but its
  distributions contested, especially by people who
  have made the greats efforts, generating between
  thrity and fifty years old, who assumed the
  pivotal period, which is not well rewarded.

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Mardi-Gras in France

• Another exciting holiday that is celebrated in
  France is Mardi-Gras.
• The French call Mardi-Gras by a different name
  they refer to the celebration as Carnivals.
• The day is celebrated right before Lent.
• Lent is celebrated by Christians, it is a time in
  which they celebrate 40 days before Easter.

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Mardi-Gras

• The French have many different customs that they
  have in order to celebrate.
• One custom they celebrate is be dressing
  completely up in costumes and going to parties.
• The idea of the costumes is to be able to
  celebrate and have as much fun as possible while
  disguised behind the costume.

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Mardi-Gras

• Another tradition that they have is very
  differnent.
• At the origin of the Carnival there were many old
  habits from France. For example, the French took
  a fat cow around the roads of Paris to tell
  people not to eat meat during Lent.

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Mardi-Gras

• As we said before the French refer to Mardi-Gras
  as Carnival.
• The word "carnival" means in Latin "to take away
  eating meat". Some people believe the idea for
  carnival started even earlier with the ancient
  festivals of the Romans.

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Mardi-Gras

• Smaller towns celebrate Mardi-Gras in many ways
  as well.
• Up in the Basque mountain town, it was a romp
  200-odd young people in fancy dress skipping,
  drumming and banging to a green and red garbed,
  face-painted conductor.

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Mardi-Gras

• Here recently they have taken up new traditions.
• Since the year of 2005 the city of Dunkirk has
  began making large dolls protraying characters of
  Mardi-Gras.
• To the right is a picture of the huge dolls they
  have made.
• As you can see the dolls can reach up to 26 feet
  tall.

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Mardi-Gras

• The celebration of Mardi-Gras happens in the
  following order.
• They first gather to began a parade consisting of
  masked people and large floats.
• The floats are called un chars.
• After the parade the party moves to a late night
  ball known as a un bal masqué.

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Mardi-Gras

• The slogan of Mardi-Gras is Let the good times
  roll which translates in French to Laissez les
  bons temps rouler. 
• A strange tradition is also to refer to people
  that are dressed for Mardi-Gras. The French will
  mock those by stating Ce n'est pas mardi gras
  aujourd'hui . It translates to "today isn't
  mardi-gras.

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Joyeux Noël!

• Noel is a Christian holiday that celebrates the
  birth of Jesus Christ.
• Usually the festivals of Christmas start the
  first Sunday of Advent (the third Sunday before
  Christmas) and end with the Epiphany.
• Advent is the time to prepare for Christmas and
  many will light candles that illuminate the
  windows others will light crowns.

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Traditions

• The celebration of Christmas in France varies by
  region. Most provinces celebrate Christmas on the
  25th of December, which is a bank holiday.
• However, in eastern and northern France, the
  Christmas season begins on 6 December, la fête de
  Saint Nicolas
• In some provinces la fête des Rois is one of the
  most important holidays of the Christmas season.
  In most countries, Epiphany (la fête des Rois)
  is the 6th of January, whereas in some places in
  France it is celebrated the first Sunday after
  1st January.
• In Lyon, 8 December is la Fête de lumières, when
  Lyonnais pay homage to the virgin Mary by putting
  candles in their windows which light up the
  village.

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Traditions

• In France one generally celebrates this holiday
  with family.
• It starts December 24 with the midnight supper
  known as le réveillon. In most cases families
  attend midnight mass and eat supper after.
• The midnight supper continues late with a
  traditional meal during which one divides the
  log of Christmas cake, a cake in the shape of a
  log.

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• This tradition of the log of Christmas cake
  comes from the original tradition of the log of
  Christmas which was very popular in France
  before the spread of electricity.
• A few days before Christmas a large trunk was
  carefully selected to hold as long as possible,
  for the log was to last until at least Christmas
  Eve.
• The log was to be cut before the rising sun.
  decorated with foliages and ribbons, and blessed
  by the head of household.

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• Père Noël brings gifts to all the children.
• In the south of France, the children find their
  gifts in shoes. Before going to bed, they put
  their shoes by the fireside for a gift from "le
  père de Noël"
• Christmas trees (Un sapin de Noël) and a crib
  (une crèche ) are used as decorations throughout
  the house.
• Une crèche refers to the manger that Jesus was
  born in.

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La Toussaint

• All Saints Day, falls on the 1st of November.
• It is a non-working day in France.
• On this day families go to cemetaries and put
  flowers on deceased family members tombs.

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• Jour férié. Fête catholique en l'honneur de tous
  les saints. Le lendemain c'est la Fête des
  morts. Selon la tradition, on met des
  chrysanthèmes sur les tombes familiales au
  cimetière.
• Public holiday. Celebrates catholic in the honor
  of all the saints. The following day it is the
  All Souls' Day. According to the tradition, one
  puts chrysanthemums on the family tombs at the
  cemetery.

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• The week before All Souls Day women in mourning
  visit les cimetières to clean the family graves
  and decorate them with artificial flowers and
  wreaths of immortelles.
• Family reunions honor the dead.
• Churches are decorated with colorful flowers,
  candles and banners.

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The End of a Great Presentation