Landeron is celebrating this year. The village in the east of the Littoral is celebrating its 700th anniversary. The festivities kicked off Monday afternoon with the participation of students from Landeron primary and secondary schools. They notably sang the song written especially for the occasion by two music teachers. This will be followed by around twenty cultural, sporting, historical and even gourmet events. “The goal is that there is always something to do at Landeron,” notes Jérémy Gaillard, co-president of the “Le Landeron 700 ans” association which coordinates the organization of all events.
To oversee all these festivities, a volunteer association was created in 2021, called “Le Landeron 700 ans”. “There are seven of us and then we launched a call for projects and we were lucky enough to have more than 80,” exclaims Jérémy Gaillard. “Each project has a person who carries it, who is not on our committee. Our role is to coordinate everything,” explains the co-president of the association.
With 80 projects proposed, the association is pleased to see that the population has largely mobilized to organize events throughout the year. In addition, there is great richness in the profiles of the people involved, to the great pleasure of Jérémy Gaillard. “Today, we already have around a hundred volunteers working on these different projects, including people who no longer live in the town,” he explains.
A renewed link with Solothurn
The history of Landeron will be highlighted in several ways during the various events. In particular, there will be a lake boat competition on August 23, “because Le Landeron has been twinned with the city of Solothurn for centuries. » And the idea for the project comes from the expression “to be loaded on Solothurn”, which will pay homage to the wine trade between Le Landeron and the German-speaking city. The official and bourgeois authorities of Solothurn will be invited for the occasion. “We are very happy because it made it possible to restart contacts,” rejoices Jérémy Gaillard.
Village built to counter La Neuveville
Landeron was built in 1325, the year when Rodolphe IV of Neuchâtel bought “what was a marsh, where the town currently stands, with the aim of countering the bishopric of Basel which had built La Neuveville a few years before” , says the co-president of the association. “The particularity of Landeron is that it is a Catholic village, because it is one of the rare villages in Neuchâtel which did not go through the reform,” continues Jérémy Gaillard.
Find the complete program of the festivities for the 700th anniversary of Landeron here. /lgn
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