Dunkerque's carnival is not a parade watched from the kerb; there is no kerb. The bande is a dense moving crowd, thousands strong, locked arm in arm behind a drum band and a line of masqueraders in oilskins, clogs and extravagantly feathered hats. It surges, it stops dead, it reverses. Newcomers are told, accurately, that the safest place is the middle.
It began among the fishermen of the Icelandic cod fleet, who were given a send-off feast before sailing for six months in the North Atlantic. The costume still quotes the trade: foul-weather gear, the umbrella carried as a standard. The set piece is the jet de harengs, when the mayor and guests throw several thousand smoked herrings from the town-hall balcony into the crowd below.
No attendance figure exists. Neither the carnival associations nor the city publishes one, and anybody who quotes a number for Dunkerque is quoting a guess.
The season runs from January to March across Dunkerque and its neighbouring communes, with the three great bandes clustered around the pre-Lent weekend. Because Lent moves with Easter, so does the peak, by up to five weeks.
PlanningEaster-linked: the bandes move with Lent, so the peak weekend shifts by up to five weeks between years.