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IN PICTURES: Spain’s baby jumping festival

All new mums look away! Here are the best photos from this year’s El Colacho baby jumping festival, held in a village in northern Spain since 1620.

Published: 23 June 2014 12:27 CEST

IN PICTURES: Spain's baby jumping festival

The bizarre idea behind the celebration is that the babies, all born within the last 12 months, are cleansed of original sin. Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP

It may seem like a health and safety inspector’s nightmare but mothers in the village of Castrillo de Murcia (near Burgos) have been allowing grown men to jump over their new-borns for nearly 400 years.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BEST PHOTOS FROM THIS YEAR'S BABY JUMPING FESTIVAL

Part of the local Corpus Christi celebrations, El Colacho (meaning ‘the devil’) sees the village men dress up in unorthodox devil costumes before leaping over mattresses with four oblivious babies lying on them.

The bizarre idea behind the celebration is that the babies, all born within the last 12 months, are cleansed of original sin.

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France's Fête de la musique 'will go ahead, with masks and a curfew'

Photo: ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP

Culture minister Roselyn Bachelot, taking part in a Q&A session with readers of French newspaper le Parisien, confirmed that the annual summer festival will go ahead this year on its usual date of June 21st.

The festival date is normally marked with thousands of events across France, from concerts in tiny villages to huge open-air events in big cities and street-corner gigs in local neighbourhoods.

Last year the festival did go ahead, in a scaled-down way, and Bachelot confirmed that the 2021 event will also happen, but with restrictions.

She said: “It will be held on 21st June and will not be subject to the health passport.

“People will be able to dance, but it will be a masked party with an 11pm curfew.”

Under France’s phased reopening plan, larger events will be allowed again from June 9th, but some of them will require a health passport (with either a vaccination certificate or a recent negative test) to enter.

The Fête de la musique, however, is generally focused around lots of smaller neighbourhood concerts.

The curfew is being gradually moved back throughout the summer before – if the health situation permits – being scrapped entirely on June 30th.

Bachelot added: “I appeal to everyone’s responsibility.

“The rate of 50 percent of people vaccinated should have been reached by then, so we will reach an important level of immunity.”

The Fête de la musique is normally France’s biggest street party, with up to 18,000 events taking place across the country on the same day.

It’s hugely popular, despite being (whisper it) the idea of an American – the concept is the brainchild of American Joel Cohen, when he was working as a music producer for French National Radio (France Musique) in the 1970s.

By 1982 the French government put its weight behind the idea and made it an official event and it’s been a fixture in the calendar ever since.

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