Carnival returns to French Riviera, as virus fears recede

NICE, France (AP) — Two years after the pandemic shut down the Carnival in the French Riviera city of Nice, artists, florists, actors, technicians and drivers are putting the final touches on their costumes, lavish flower arrangements and giant floats set to roll down the city's famed boulevards and squares on Friday.

It will be a loud, rich and crowded chain of events over the next two weeks. The Carnival’s 149th edition is led by the King of Animals, celebrating nature, light, human connection and life itself after months of lockdowns, silence, social distancing and banned public gatherings.

“It’s rejuvenation,” said Nicole Bravi, the director of the florist association, La Nouvelle Vague, that has been designing flower arrangements for the Carnival floats for 20 years. Flowers are a prominent part of the Nice Carnival and feature in their own parade known as the Battle of Flowers. Traditionally, people throw flowers at the spectators but this year they decided to hand them out to people.

“It’s to express our desire to reconnect with people,” Bravi said. “There has been so much grief and nostalgia and melancholy that we just want to give people some beauty back.”

The Nice Carnival is part of a European medieval carnival tradition, and the city's two-week festival of excess in costumes, food and music is one of the world biggest, after those in Venice, Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Public celebrations in the city on the French Mediterranean coast started in the early 19th century to honor visiting nobility. There were street battles in which people pelted one another with flour and eggs. By the late 1800s a modern version of the Carnival emerged after the local painter, Alexis Mossa designed grotesque characters and put them on floats.

The Carnival...