Carnival in France: Our Favourite Fêtes from Nice to Annecy

NICE

Nope, your eyes don’t deceive you. The 2018 Nice Carnaval kicked off its high-octane parade with a giant dummy of Donald Trump blasting Kim Jong-un out of a cannon. What the grotesque papier-mâché effigy of Theresa May humping Big Ben hot on its wheels – or, indeed, the fanged ‘likeness’ of Erdogan bringing up the rear, Putin in tow – had to do with the procession’s promised space theme was anyone’s guess.

Mind you, you never quite know who is going to come tearing through the city astride those kooky oats. And with a string of disgraced filmmakers and luvvies ripe for pillorying in the wake of the Me Too scandal, we dare not imagine the sort of creations this year’s “King of Cinema” theme might spawn… The crackpot parade(s) aside, the perennially popular (and muscular) Bataille de Fleurs – which sees locals push and shove to lay their hands on the thousands of buds showered on the crowd by costumed ‘flower girls’ – will return. Never a dull moment at Nice Carnaval, which takes place February 16 to March 2. For more information visit http://en.nicecarnaval.com/.