Moselle. Do you know what the very first Metz International Fair looked like?

“Hmm! Hum! My dear colleagues! » The meeting of the Metz commercial protection committee, this October 12, 1927, is coming to an end. But its president, Camille Hocquard, saved the best for last (1). He has a proposal to make to his counterparts: create a trade fair “which must be renewed every year (and where we will see) all our products from our basement, the articles manufactured and manufactured in the region of the ‘East “.

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The foundations of the current FIM were laid that day. It will be in autumn, it will last 15 days, the event will have to be prepared for a year without leaving room for improvisation. All the newspapers – “Le Lorrain, Le Messin, L’Est Républicain, Le Républicain Lorrain, La Libre Lorraine, with the great press of Paris” – which “will realize the value and the high importance” of the event, “will work […] with all our Metz industrialists, merchants and craftsmen to the grandeur and prestige of our dear city of Metz” (1).

Tents and covered halls on Place Mazelle

The location of the first edition is fixed: it will be between Porte desAllemands, Place Mazelle and Avenue Foch near the Grand Séminaire, areas considered at the time to be “a little deprived from a commercial point of view”.

In the process, an organizing committee was set up, chaired by Camille Hocquard with the mayor of Metz, Paul Vautrin, as honorary president. Subsidies are voted: 10,000 francs from the City and 5,000 francs from the Department and the Moselle Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

This Thursday, September 27, 1928, it was the prefect of Moselle Manceron who opened the very first edition of the FIM. Covered halls and tents were set up on approximately five hectares of land. A little over 200 exhibitors set up “in happy disorder. Office items next to food appliances, perfumery, agricultural machinery or confectionery.”

From this first edition, the protocol already takes on its full importance. Thus, a second inauguration, this one very official, took place on September 30, chaired by the Minister of Pensions, with the prefect of Moselle but also the mayors of Luxembourg, Nancy, Verdun and Epinal! A third ribbon cutting is organized during the visit of the President of the Council, former President of the Republic, Raymond Poincaré. That day, a historical procession parades through the streets of Metz to represent the French army through the ages.

Another “curiosity” of the time: to close the event, the exhibition fair is offering “a competition for the most beautiful baby”!

This first fair, entry to which cost 2 francs during the week and 3 francs on Sunday, recorded 200,000 entries.

A promising start. The 89th FIM, which closes this Monday, October 7, 2024, welcomed 2,500 exhibitors on 550 stands and aimed to reach 150,000 entries.

Today, if the name of Camille Hocquard is familiar to the Messins, it is because the man also gave his name to a square with a roundabout at the entrance to the Amphitheater district.

(1) “La Fim, a whole story”, website of the Metz International Fair

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