Postponed by two weeks from its usual dates due to the Paralympic Games, the Lille clearance sale opened on Saturday morning, 14 September. One of the largest flea markets in Europe attracts nearly 2.5 million visitors to the northern city every year.
Despite this gap, announced in January 2023 by the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, “No one is missing, everyone is here”The councillor was delighted on Friday morning at France Bleu Nord, stating that 5,500 exhibitors were expected, including “half of the inhabitants, 2,000 merchants and 545 second-hand and antique dealers”.
The event, which ends on Sunday at 6 p.m., also has a major security problem: “3,000 state agents (police, gendarmes, customs officers, military) will be mobilized”the Northern prefecture explained on Friday.
First bargain hunters starting Friday
Although it was officially banned before the sale began on Saturday at 8 a.m., the sale began on Friday in certain pedestrian areas of the city, where the first bargain hunters tried to get good deals.
Since 2017, the sale of any new product or object (excluding permanent businesses) is “strictly prohibited”the city that presents the event as “Europe’s largest showcase for recycling”.
While 500 tonnes of mussels will be consumed over the weekend, Lille invites restaurateurs to pile up mussels within the perimeter of the clearance sale and report them to allow for recycling. As for unsold food, it will be distributed on Monday at noon during a “great solidarity meal”organized by the city with associations, merchants and restaurateurs.
