The Bayonne Festivals are part of the DNA of the people of Bayonne. For 90 years, it’s been a moment of joy bequeathed by a group of friends who invented the holidays in 1932, a real stroke of genius. A few days before the 2022 edition, which takes place from July 27 to 31, France Bleu Pays Basque went to meet Henri Lauqué, the president of the Bayonne festival commission since 1995 and member of the festival committee for more than 40 years to a history of these festivals and their evolution over the years.
France Bleu: How did the Bayonne Festival come about?
Henri Lauque : These are rugby players from Aviron Bayonnais who went to the Pamplona Festival. They liked it a lot and wondered “Ecouldn’t we reproduce a popular festival of the same inspiration? “It was this group of friends who convinced the mayor at the time that there was room in the middle of summer, at the time around July 14, to set up six days of celebration. In 1932 it was six days of celebration with the street party. It wasn’t a sum of shows that we come to watch. It was already, from the start, inspired by participation. It’s the party that we do , it is not the party that we are looking at.
The key then the keys for the opening of the holidays
For the official opening of the holidays, from the start, the symbolism of the key was very present. She wanted to be the key to the city entrusted to the youth. And then, after the parenthesis of the Second World War, the celebrations took an even greater turn by integrating a certain number of demonstrations with the cow races, the parade of floats which became luminous corso and the key which was replaced by three keys which correspond to the three historical districts of the city: Saint Esprit Rive droite, Petit Bayonne and Grand Bayonne.
– Daniel Velez
Where does Leon, King of Bayonne, come from?
Famous people, like Luis Mariano in 1961, throw the keys to the festayres from the balcony to open the parties. However, victims of their success, the Bayonne Festivals gradually took a less warm turn, it was necessary to react. The festival commission and the peñas went to look for solutions.
Henri Lauque : At that time, let us remember, it is from the cow races, that is to say at 4 p.m. that the party began. At the time, in the 80s and 90s, the members of the peña Or Konpon had the idea of creating a symbol of banter, of celebration, of a king who would reign over the city. There had already been a bit of a king. A little carried away on the bottle, it was someone who loved opera, who sang opera badly and who was called Léon Dachary. And just after the war, Léon had been declared king of Bayone, which then gave rise to a song “Léon roi de Bayonne, roi des idiots”. Or Konpon asked the designer Jean Duverdier to bring this King Leon to life. The idea was that this king Léon, installed on the balcony of the town hall, throne during all the festivals of Bayonne. It hit very, very quickly!
King Léon, his court with his 6 characters and his gaiteros have become the darling of young and old alike, in Bayonne and elsewhere. And a song is even dedicated to her beautiful and lese majesty!