To make lockdown easier, Grenoble starts a digital festival

You only need internet access and a device to attend it

The French have been asked to stay home since last Monday, as a measure to contain the coronavirus. Naturally, this is an entirely new and rather unpleasant experience for most of them. Luckily, some local governments are finding ingenious ways to entertain their citizens and motivate them to respect the restrictions imposed by the central government.

Enjoying a festival from the sofa

One of them is Grenoble, located in the south-east of France. The capital of Isère department announced today that they will be launching an entirely digital festival. This should at least partially make up for the impossibility to go to social events, like cinemas, concerts or the gym.

Starting today, 20 March, every morning there will be an entertainment programme on the Facebook page of the Municipality of Grenoble. It begins at 9h with sports activities. The programme will continue with cooking lessons (at 11h), art and cinema sessions for the youngest (at 16h) and a different cultural emission in the evenings (at 18h).

The event is made possible thanks to a number of local organisations, including the Digital library of the Metropole, the Mountain Cinema Festival, the National Choreographic Center, the Cinematheque, the Detours of Babel, the Voir Ensemble film festival, Mix'Art, Batukavi, the Prémol Theater.

A delayed Covid-19 response

"We received an extremely strong response from the Grenoble associative fabric" explained Mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle, quoted by francetvinfo. He appealed to French people to stay at home and was certain that local governments have an important role to play in the process.

Piolle was also critical of the Government’s reaction and explained that home confinement was imposed with a 10-days delay. As a reminder, France went on lockdown on Monday 16 March for at least 15 days. The measures include social distancing, limited movement of people and suspension of reforms.