France/Chelles: the town celebrates sixty years of twinning and pays tribute to Jean Agletiner

On September 21, Chelles celebrated 60 years of twinning with the German town of Lindau. To mark the occasion, a traffic circle was named after Jean Agletiner.

"The crowd present on Saturday, September 21, 2024 agreed that it was a fitting tribute. On that day, Chelles(Seine-et-Marne) celebrated sixty years of twinning with the German town of Lindau, in Bavaria. To mark the occasion, the town named an area after Jean Agletiner, the driving force behind the twinning and a former local councillor.

A tribute

Accompanied by their delegations, the twinning committee and the Agletiner family, Claudia Alfons and Brice Rabaste, mayors of Lindau and Chelles respectively, first visited the cemetery to place flowers on Jean Agletiner's grave.

Chellois then joined the gathering for the second highlight of the day: the inauguration of a traffic circle.

"This traffic circle is just a few streets from Jean Agletiner's last home ," said Brice Rabaste in his speech, underlining Jean Agletiner's strong civic commitment. In particular, he cites his three terms in office in Chelles, as deputy mayor under Guy Rabourdin in the 1960s.

Antoine Agletiner takes the microphone and emotionally shares his memories of the man he nicknamed "Grand-Père Jean". "Grand-Père Jean was an amusing and cultured man , with an eye to the future and always in search of the common good," he recalls.

He recalls the array of medals his grandfather received from General de Gaulle himself. He describes a man full of anecdotes, straddling his wooden leg since the year he turned 22. "It was to spare future generations the horror of war that Grand-Père Jean became involved in twinning with Germany," he says.

Since 1964, when the first Chelles-Lindau twinning agreement for Franco-German friendship was signed, meetings have been held in both towns. Lindauers and Chellois of all ages come together to enjoy sport, festivities and friendship.

After a musical interlude played by the Lindau brass band, the two mayors and the twinning committee unveil the traffic circle, now called the Jean-Agletiner traffic circle. Located at the intersection of avenues Beauséjour, Doumer and Albert-Caillou, this traffic circle echoes the three-country corner of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which encloses Lindau on Lake Constance in Bavaria, Germany.

The procession then headed for the Parc du Souvenir-Émile-Fouchard, where the two mayors, followed by two of the children's councillors, took turns laying a wreath at the foot of the 1939-1945 monument.

Renewal of twinning

Before planting a lime tree in the park , donated by the German delegation, a symbol carried to the Lindau flag, the two mayors renewed their vows of Franco-German friendship in one of the municipal halls.

The two mayors renewed the act of twinning with their respective signatures. In a gesture of friendship and respect for protocol, Brice Rabaste presented Claudia Alfons with a painting of Chelles, inspired by the now-defunct Chelles Abbey and created by a local artist. He also decorated her counterpart with the Citizen of Honor medal.

Mireille Agletiner, Jean Agletiner's daughter-in-law and President of the Chelles-Lindau Twinning Committee, also took the microphone. She bore witness to the links forged since the train journey from Chelles to Lindau in 1967. She said of the morning: "You take us away with hearts full of emotion and heads full of memories, beautiful memories".

Source: actu.fr/ile-de-france/