France/Meaux. The city celebrated the anniversary of the twinning with Heiligenhaus and Basildon

The anniversary of the twinning of Meaux with the German town of Heiligenhaus (52 years) and the English town of Basildon (32 years) was celebrated on Saturday, May 7, at the Great War Museum.

This year's anniversary ceremony was particularly important because of the tensions in Eastern Europe. Laurent Guillaume, president of the twinning committee of Meaux, declares: "The twinning committee is the Europe of everyday life, the Europe of everyday people. When we see that peace is threatened more than ever, we must strengthen the link between peoples. "

Twinning with an English town after the Brexit affirms that friendship between peoples can sometimes supersede political differences. Jean-François Copé, mayor of Meaux, says: "Despite the chaos of recent history and the Brexit, we consider, perhaps abusively and with a bit of bad faith, that Basildon is still part of Europe."

After the traditional exchange of gifts, the Compagnons du brie de Meaux brotherhood inducted three new members. Michael Beck, mayor of Heiligenhaus, is already a member of the brotherhood, but this was not the case for the mayor of Basildon who was inducted with the deputy mayor of the town.The mayor of Basildon was inducted together with the deputy mayor for finance of Heiligenhaus and the president of the twinning community of Basildon.

Thierry Bitschene, grand officer of the mouth and president of the brotherhood, parodied Shakespeare by addressing the mayor of Basildon with a "tout brie or not to brie".The Richter Quartet closed the ceremony by performing works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell and Anton Webern.

The celebration of the joint anniversary of the twinning continued the next day, Sunday, May 8, with the signing of the renewal of the twinning charter, at the town hall of Meaux.At the Great War Museum on Saturday, the past met the present, as the foundation stone of the building was laid by Jean-François Copé, the then Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, and by Nicolas, the youngest member of the twinning committee at the time, who was only 13 years old.

Source: www.magjournal77.fr