Le Havre – The Parade of Giants of the Royal de Luxe

One of the main events of the 500 years celebrations of Le Havre was going to be the parade of Giants produced by the Royal de Luxe. Although the company is based in Nantes, the appearance of the first giant was here in Le Havre back in 1993.

This year, two giants would be visiting the harbour city. One boy, the other his father. So it’s not a simple parade like those you can see in almost every city. This is STREET ART at its best. It’s not like you stand still, the parade passes you by and then you go home. Not in this case, since the two characters are independently walking through the city like two human beings; they go different ways, they stop, they eat, they cool down and they even take a nap. Eventually, they hook up somewhere in the city to go to sleep.

Here are a series of photo I took, first from the little boy, and then later that day of the father.

Early in the morning I could see cranes and a strange truck parked close to our house. Several people had already gathered.

Surprise, a container could be seen at the water edge of the beach. Had it been drifting towards the beach? Or was it an abandoned container? A few people were having a look at it.

Later on, it became apparent that the “strange” truck was a truck that held the music band of the parade.

The folks in the yellow shirts are volunteers to keep the parade moving.

Already many more people had arrived to see the show, many of them were around the container. A few minutes before the official start (10:00), a crane arrived…

… and started dragging the container onto the land.

Valets, dressed in a red coat and trousers started hooking up the crane to something inside the container…

… a small boy could be seen exiting the container.

The giant small boy is moved to the master puppeteer (seen on the right above).

The procession started moving, with the music car followed by the giant and 10,000’s of people (estimate of the day was 150,000 spectators).

A band was playing modern music while driving at a crawl speed.

The giant was walking thanks to two puppeteers (in sharp contrast with the “father” giant as you will see later on which required 10’s of people).

The two puppeteers move many parts of the giant, including his eyes…

This does not look like an easy job; you can’t have fear of heights and you’ll need to be able to withstand a lot of sun and heat.

Eyes and mouth can move…

This is the truck that holds the puppeteers. It looks like something out of the apocalypse of the future.

The yellow shirts hold a rope keeping the spectators away, while the ground valets (red coats) action parts of the giant.

The giant boy went for a walk around several of the streets in Le Havre, followed by …..

… a very dense crowd, both in front and behind the giant.

Eventually, around noon, the giant boy arrived back at the beach, and he was fed something to eat and then ….

… he went for a nap (note: he actually snores…)

Later that day….

… after his nap, the boy giant went walking again. We caught up with him at the water basin in the city centre, close to the Oscar Niemeyer “Volcan“.

But this time has was not alone, since his father was looking for him. 15 minutes later….

Much taller and more functions, the giant father arrives looking for his son.

This is one very tall giant. I’m standing on the 2nd floor of a building’s balcony…

Here you can see a lot of red valets doing acrobatic things with this giant. They form an essential part of the “walk” of the giant.

Above is a animated file how the giant moves. The valets, two at a time, hold on to a rope and jump to the front. Their weight pulls up the knee of the giant, while the truck moves it forward, giving a very real impression of walking.

You can see that a lot of staff is needed to make the giant move effortlessly. The jumpers, the pullers and someone to operate the hydraulics.

Uncanny.

Like the little boy, the father giant has a band playing while walking through Le Havre.

People were moving continuously, either following the giant(s) or moving to a new viewing point.

At one stage the giant father stopped and was refreshed thanks to a firetruck that strayed water on the giant, and give him to drink. Fun…

In the mean time, the giant father is still looking for his child.

Finally, he turned towards the beach area again..

… after walking through the harbour, he finds his lost son close to the Muma museum. There he is kissed by his son, and both of them went to sleep after a long day. They will remain in Le Havre over the weekend to explore the city together.

Conclusion

A beautiful parade, not like any other you will have ever seen. You might think that “only” 2 giants is nothing, but it’s a whole show to be seen around the city. This is street theatre like never seen before. All of the Le Havre city centre was emptied out of cars for the whole week, enormous concrete blocks placed around the city to prevent mad truck attacks, and armed guards (police and army) all around but not in-your-face.

A great event that was very enjoyable, especially thanks to the great weather. Over 300,000 people are expected this weekend.

Click here to access the Royal de Luxe website.

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