The question resurfaces every year between embarrassment and nostalgia. If the religious foundations of December 8 do not allow any debate, its evolution towards a secular demonstration is accompanied by a quest for meaning. The various politicians who are in charge of it dress it every year with a symbolic significance. It varies with the context. In 2015, after the Paris attacks, the festivities were canceled, but the candle lights in the windows had a poignant emotional charge. In 2021, after the Covid parenthesis, Grégory Doucet evoked a form of return to normal life. This year, the environmentalist mayor of Lyon wants to make December 8 the demonstration that sobriety can rhyme with festivity and thus twist the neck like the austere decreasing ones attached to the Greens. Grégory Doucet summarizes the 2022 program as follows: “Energetic sobriety, but abundance of joy and pleasure”. December 8 is no exception to the rule of a society that seeks to give meaning, a message or symbolism to any event.
“We are secular. The Festival of Lights therefore has no religious dimension. But there are values around December 8 that we can share: getting together, forming a community. The symbol of the tealight is important for us, but not in its religious dimension of the candle. It refers to a practice that all families can have. Children can make them at school or in popular education associations and install them in windows. I would like us to find this participatory aspect”, developed Audrey Hénocque, first deputy mayor, on the eve of the first edition of the Festival, simmered by the green majority.
“More a gesture of thanks than a religious one”
Going back to the day of December 8, 1852 when, for the first time, the people of Lyon climbed the hill of Fourvière with lanterns in hand, Georges Képénékian, former mayor of Lyon and deputy in charge of the Festival of Lights, finds political material. “The story of this Festival is part of a particular moment. On the morning of December 8, the authorities had canceled the installation ceremony of the statue of the Virgin Mary, because it was raining heavily. In the afternoon, the weather improved and the people of Lyon spontaneously took up their torches and overcame the ban. In 1852, we were shortly after the revolution of 1848, and Lyon no longer had a mayor. It was a very sacred moment and also a very political one”, he rereads. “The Festival of Lights can be linked to the sacred, but on December 8, 1852, it is more a gesture of thanks than a religious one”, abounds Yann Cucherat, opposition municipal councilor and deputy during the last two editions of the Collomb years. Since 2020, environmentalists have been rubbing shoulders with the exegesis exercise of December 8. “The meaning and the symbol that I see in the Festival of Lights is conviviality, making society. There is a religious connotation in this demonstration which is that of the city saved from the plague, but also a notion of collective gathering”. analyzes Gautier Chapuis, co-president of the environmental group on the municipal council. The new majority has decided to make it the cardinal virtue of their Festivals of Lights. “Around December 8, there are no social or political issues. It is an individual celebration, of wandering and originally religious”. slice Bruno Benoit. This historian of Lyon and inventor of the concept of lyonnitude is amused by the interpretations of the city councilors: “Politicians always recover history in their own way.”
“From a family celebration to a festive event”
The share of religion has significantly decreased over time. A phenomenon that accelerated from the 1990s and the appearance of the Festival of Lights in its current version. “Michel Noir with his desire to highlight the city marked a first step. Raymond Barre and especially Gérard Collomb have continued in this vein and have made December 8 a celebration, like all major cities seeking to attract tourists around an identity. Lyon has gone from a family celebration to a festive event over several days around light effects that attract buses”, judge, severely, Bruno Benoit. A development that shares the Lyonnais with a debate that extends into the ranks of elected officials. “I never experienced December 8 as a religious holiday when I was a child. For me, it announced the end of year celebrations. It was a special event. We lit candles in our windows. It is a cultural, historical and popular event. I remain attached to December 8, but I am not going to the Festival of Lights”, confides Rémi Zinck, mayor of the 4th arrondissement and native of Lyon.
The religious dimension of December 8 emerges in flash around the Festival of Lights. It is mainly embodied by the “Merci Marie” which adorns the hill of Fourvière. “I always judge the success of the party according to the site of Fourvière. This is the key site. It is linked to the history of our city, but it is also the most difficult to highlight, especially the lower part of the hill. For the Saint-Jean cathedral, the mission is simpler and the artists are rarely mistaken”, slips Yann Cucherat. “It is impossible to deny the spiritual dimension of December 8, but in the choice of works, the religious question had no place. We just took care to leave the “Merci Marie” of the Fourvière foundation visible. And then we submitted, only for opinion, the choice of the illumination of the Saint-Jean cathedral to the cardinal. It was a kind of modus vivendi”, says Georges Képénékian.
Since last year, religion has also made a comeback. The Region has taken over the basilica of Fourvière. With the consent of environmentalists. “We had blocked his request for two years. We understood that she would not be in tune”, laments a former assistant. Last year’s show embraced the religious dimension in a few “paintings”. In 2022, the illumination will return for a month. “It becomes a competition between the two communities, to which one will make the most beautiful sound and light. This is not Lyon’s identity”, regrets Bertrand Artigny, elected ecologist of the 5th arrondissement. Within the Festival of Lights, a site tries to make the link between the festival around light and the original religious dimension: the Lumignons du cœur. Each year, the City of Lyon reserves an emblematic place for a more intimate illumination by candlelight. Spectators can buy lanterns on site for the benefit of an association. In 2022, the collection will be donated to the Salvation Army. “Les Lumignons du cœur have been added to show that it is not just a party with mulled wine and merguez sausages”, smiles Georges Képénékian.
Lights at half mast
The intersection of the popularity curves between December 8, the historic channel, and the Festival of Lights has led to a reduction in the importance of tea lights. And also their number. “The further we go in time, the more they disappear. During the previous mandate, we had to carry out a poster campaign to encourage Lyonnais to light up their windows. In the heart of the city, it has become rare to see lanterns on buildings. There are more of them in more remote and more popular neighborhoods. Perhaps not everyone who lives in the city center is a true Lyonnais. We must keep the heritage dimension of the Festival, but I feel a gradual decline”, plague Yann Cucherat. “I notice every year that in supermarkets, the pile of lanterns is slowly going down. Who is still from Lyon today? abounds Bruno Benoit. The new Lyonnais, a changing framework to caricature, would pay less in this local particularism.
Collaborative illuminations
To associate the people of Lyon with the Festival and its evolution over time, environmentalists want to make them actors. Since last year, works of the sound and light festival have been built with residents. In 2022, several works are collaborative, such as the I love light in Place Bellecour or the Beacon of hope project in the garden of the Institut Lumière. They also highlight the usability marker with two major developments. In order to develop the offer for a family audience, the Festival of Lights takes over Blandan Park with works designed for young audiences. The festival program espouses Grégory Doucet’s promise to make Lyon a city for children. In 2022, the new majority is testing a break area on Place Bellecour where spectators can meet over a drink or a dish. “This was one of the reviews from tourists who said that in the city of food, the food is average during the Festival of Lights”, justifies Julien Pavillard, coordinator of the event. From the DNA of December 8, it is the genome of conviviality that ecologists want to work on.
Programming that is too political?
This year, many works presented to the public develop an environmental message or question the place of nature in the city. At the Parc de la Tête-d’Or, the imposing Agorythm structure projects lasers at a tempo dictated by air quality or bicycle traffic. Many installations are made from recycled materials. Choices that challenge Yann Cucherat, former deputy in charge of the festival during the previous mandate: “We have never given a political theme or coloring to the Festival of Lights. With Gérard Collomb, we considered that it was absolutely necessary not to do it and to give free rein to the artists. Spontaneously, they send messages. Sometimes they took on environmental issues. I remember a work on the path leading to the Parc de la Tête-d’Or which evoked the fauna and flora. But there, I have the impression that there is a more political coloring in the programming. We should not stray from the tradition of the Festival of Lights.” “Everyone has their own way of seeing the Festival of Lights. When Gérard Collomb used it as an outreach tool to attract foreign tourists, it was a political orientation. We were elected to give direction to the city and that is what we do in all our policies. This also applies to the Festival of Lights. But I think it’s mostly the artistic world that’s going in that direction. Politicians are often the last actors to move”, assumes Gautier Chapuis, co-president of the environmental group on the municipal council. Gérard Collomb had theorized, during his almost twenty years in office, that overly intellectualized works were not particularly well received by spectators. He had even ousted, after a 2004 edition deemed too intellectual, Pascale Bonniel-Chalier his assistant… green on December 8.
Festival of Lights: what remains of the spirit of December 8?