As most of Europe moves into the solemn weeks before Easter, the party is just getting started on the French Rivera. The town of Menton, southeast France, showcased its lush citrus and celebrated the upcoming Olympics in Paris during its Carnival parade on Sunday, February 18. Sculptures of athletes assembled from lemons and oranges decorated the streets and rode on giant floats.
Nice, the Rivera's capital, kicked off its annual Carnival season on Saturday night with a pop culture-themed parade of lights and extravagant floats that featured Star Wars character Luke Skywalker as king and Marilyn Monroe, clad in a Superwoman costume, as his queen.
Both festivals on the French Mediterranean coast are derived from a medieval Mardi Gras tradition of staging public spectacles for visiting European nobles. Modern versions of Carnival over the past century have mocked politicians and ridiculed public figures.
But the weekend parades in Nice and Menton avoided divisive politics and grim events, focusing instead on recognizing achievements in film, music, art and sports. "We wanted to honor the Olympics because Paris is hosting the Games," Christophe Ghiena, the technical director of Menton's Lemon Festival, the Fête du Citron, said.
The theme of the 90th edition of the Fête du Citron was "From Olympia to Menton." 10 floats carried giant figures of tennis, rugby and badminton players, a boxer, a swimmer, an equestrian athlete and a surfer called John Lemon down a seaside boardwalk as visitors doubled the town's population of 33,000.
For each float and the historical scenes lining Menton's Les Jardins Bioves park, up to three tons of fruit were rubber-banded to a mounted wire framework and shaped to reflect the Olympics theme. The Greek goddess of victory, and discus and javelin throwers from the ancient Olympics joined the representations of contemporary athletes.
In line with this year's parade theme, the king and queen will oversee their subjects and other pop culture icons in a series of parades until the end of the month, when they will be burned and buried.