The “fruitage” of the motives
and the parade floats
The service team of the Gardens of the Town takes care of gathering
the box wood that will be used to draw the outlines of the motives.
“We work together with the ONF (Forests National Office)
which cuts them in the forest”, says Alain Delaboudinière.
We look for them on the mountains and in the hinterland. 70
m3 of wood box are plaited in the shape of garlands. Parade
floats and motives are covered with gratings. Then lemons and
oranges are attached to them with yellow and orange rubbers,
for them to be discreet. “Before we were using iron wire.
It’s a gardener who had the idea of using rubbers because
they damage less the fruits.” To cover 1m2 of grating,
we need 30 kg of fruits, which means more or less 200 oranges
and lemons! The whole of the fruits - 130 tons – is imported
from Spain. They arrive in Menton by the end of January and
start to be placed from the 2nf of February. The rubbers we
use come from Taiwan. We hardly need 500000! During the 15 days
of the Fête du Citron®, 80 people are mobilized. The
day before the inauguration, we substitute the ruined fruits.
During the festival, we change every day the rotten fruits:
“We replace more or les 4/5 tons of fruits. We have to
place a thin grating around the fruits on the bottom of the
floats in order to avoid the temptation of pulling them away
as they pass!”
From a festival to the other
The festival is over, but the Gardens service team has still
something to do: “We have to dismantle everything in 4
days. It’s a bit sad to disassemble something we took
so long to build! We have to plant the grass and the plantations
of the Biovès gardens again.” After the manifestation,
the fruits still in good condition are sold for a cheap price
in front of the Europe Palace, with great pleasure of the marmalade,
syrup and orange wine lovers…
(source : dossier de presse de l'Office du
Tourisme de Menton)
