SA popular fairground specialty among amusement park enthusiasts, Mickey’s tail is not for everyone. Using a rope to spin a stuffed mouse with a detachable appendage requires maximum skill and a minimum of experience. In Paimpol (Côtes-d’Armor), Jean-François Le Moullec has been working in this field for over forty years.
The boss of Meteor 2000, an attraction made up of a dozen cars, fire trucks and other helicopters with the image of characters well known to children under 10 (Frozen, Lilo and Stitch, Paw Patrol, etc.), has no equal in creating a joyful atmosphere. The clientele goes crazy, the handcuffs stretched towards the sky. “It’s my hobby, explains the manager. I play with the kids, I like to tickle their noses with the pompom, gently excite them, knowing that at the end there is always a prize. » In this case, a free trip for the winners of the fabric trophy.
Except the heart is no longer there. Or much less. In January, the town council informed Jean-François Le Moullec that it wanted to install permanent games on the site and to remodel the square where the carousel is set up during school holidays, except on All Saints’ Day, when the attraction is added to the surrounding holiday fairground area. “End of August, it’s over!” decreed by the municipality, explaining that it wanted to enhance the local heritage. Remains of an 18th century churchmy In the centre of the square stands a bell tower, classified as a historical monument. Until then, ancient stones and kitsch carousels coexisted silently. “It didn’t bother anyone. the trade fair operator laments at his stand. In a way, my journey is also part of the heritage, from the time we have been here. »
Illustrious fair family
At first, nothing predestines Jean-François Le Moullec to pilot a French-made turntable (Someplas brand). When he was younger, his future even seemed mapped out: to succeed his father, owner of an electrical appliance store in Pleumeur-Gautier (Côtes-d’Armor). And then the fair stopped in the village. The Breton was in love with Géraldine, the daughter of the directors of the Tourbillon, a caterpillar attraction. Geraldine is “a goblin”The company is named after an illustrious Normandy fairground family. The couple bought their first vehicle in 1980, which they installed in the car park of the Mammouth supermarket in Paimpol for its inauguration.
Finding a name for it was not easy. The combination of a brand of beer tasted one evening at the counter and a date synonymous with the new millennium would eventually pay off. Acquired in 1993, a second vehicle would also be called Meteor 2000. The machine mounted on compressed air cylinders has not changed one iota, except for the resin heroes depicted on the vehicles, renewed every five or six years, according to television fashions. Its usual installation site is Théodore-Botrel, named after the creator of the The Paimpolaise (1895), a famous local song mentioning a cliff that does not exist in Paimpol, dates from the late 1990s.
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