Friday is Fête des Voisins

THIS Friday is the annual Fête des Voisins, when people are especially encouraged to get to know their neighbours better – and this year if you are on the train, that includes your ‘neighbour’ sitting next to you.

Many residential areas and blocks of flats will be organising get-togethers, to share food and drink and break down the isolation that is sometimes typical of modern life. If you are organising or taking part in one there is more information (in French) at Immeubles en Fête.

Also getting in on the act this year is the SNCF, which is running an event called Voisins à bord on its TGVs.

It suggests that if you are taking the train that day you bring food and drink to share with the people sitting near to you.

Buffet cars will also be running promotions on items such as ‘buy one coffee and get one for your neighbour free’, or chocolate cakes made for sharing.

Also new this year is a scheme whereby people with cars will offer to lend them to neighbours without one. They will be able to open them to use with a swipe card, in a partnership between the organisers of Fête des Voisins and the company Koolicar.

The Fête des Voisins (in English, Neighbours’ Day), also known as Immeubles en Fête, was started in France in 1999 in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, by Athanse Périfan, organiser of an association called Paris d’Amis.

He had the idea after being shocked at discovering an elderly neighbour had died in her apartment and not been found for four months.

The event became nation-wide in 2000 and has since spread to many countries in Europe and further afield such as Canada and Japan.

It is estimated that nearly eight million people in France took part in last year’s fête .