Marseille’s Carnaval de la Plaine is the French tradition that melds resistance with revelry

People celebrate by filling the streets in Marseille. Photo / AP Daniel Cole

On a sunny afternoon in the centre of Marseille in southern France, traffic was stopped as the sound of drumming and a swarm of rollicking beasts filled the streets.

The city’s unofficial yet infamous Carnaval de la Plaine had arrived — right on the precipice of a week filled with violent protests and discontent over French President Emmanuel Macron’s move to force through an unpopular bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

Organised by neighbourhood residents, the independent carnival is rooted in the local community’s activism against gentrification and all forms of oppression.

People dance in the street during Marseille's Carnaval de la Plaine in southern France. Photo / AP Daniel Cole

Residents of this ancient and diverse Mediterranean city take to the streets in the most wacky and elaborate costumes they can come up with, and exercise free rein to throw flour at anyone not in the know — or brave enough to show up in normal clothes.

Most editions in recent memory end with riot police dispersing the feisty crowd with tear gas, making police intervention almost part of the tradition.

A carnival goer watches as a carnival float depicting Marseille goes up in flames. Photo / AP Daniel Cole

In this year’s edition, held Sunday, a man wearing a Macron mask and dressed in a suit waltzed through the streets, covered in flour thrown by the raunchy dancing crowd.

A group of three dressed up as slices of a pizza, each with a price tag of €49.3 — a reference to the constitutional article 49.3, used by Macron’s government to push his pension reform through parliament without a vote after weeks of strikes.

Carnival goers wearing costumes to protest high inflation come together. Photo / AP Daniel Cole

Rising inflation and the surveillance state were common themes referenced in the bouncing costumes worn by carnival-goers, as they marched around Jean Jaures Square singing and dancing.

At sundown, carnival floats were burned so that the procession could dance rings around the flames, as French riot police took positions on the edge of the party.

Like many of the anti-government demonstrations that came earlier in the week, the Carnaval de la Plaine concluded with clashes, as French riot police cleared the square of carnival-goers and firefighters doused the remains of the burning effigies.

- Associated Press