Sacrilege to Notre-Dame-d’Espérance! A local liturgical heritage treasure, the century-old monumental nativity scene for which the Suquet church is famous has become frozen. Angels no longer fly in the sky of Bethlehem above the Moorish houses. The mill’s wings no longer turn and its river has dried up. Gone are the merry-go-round of sheep, donkeys and Nativity animals. Even the four hymns which punctuated the movement of the automatons fell silent.
On social networks, notably Facebook groups on the history of Cannes, devotees and lovers of these few minutes of enchantment in exchange for a piece, leave dozens of messages of sadness and disappointment.
“It’s sad, it was a dream”
“I came there every Thursday when I was little, what a shame” slips Jackie, 71 years old. “How sad, this nativity scene was wonderful, reacts another Cannes resident. She was Le Suquet. She was Cannes. It was a dream.”
With the holidays approaching, the affair turns into a nightmare. Since the beginning of December, the biblical nativity scene, immobile, has been lit with a succession of pink, blue and purple lights. Not to everyone’s taste… “It’s not a nightclub”sighs an outraged Suquetane.
As an explanation for this unpleasant Christmas surprise, a poster, signed Mister the priest, affixed next to the nativity scene: “The mechanisms will not be put into action this year. It turns out that an upgrade of the electrical installation is necessary.”
The town hall has no jurisdiction
Questioned, Father Paul Chalard, appointed last year at Notre-Dame-d’Esperance, confirms: “The municipal security commission came and disconnected the twenty power strips from the nursery. I am waiting for a quote so that the mechanisms can be reinstalled at the beginning of January, automaton by automaton”.
A version that the Cannes town hall invalidates.
“It was not the town hall which prevented the lighting of the Suquet crèche. The municipal security commission passed in November 2023, without contraindication as to the opening of the church to the public. A report from Periodic electricity inspection was carried out in March 2024 at the request of the town hall as the owner of the building. This report indicated the need to repair certain electrical circuits based on the general panel. 2024. The crèche belongs to the parish and its control therefore falls within its competence and responsibility. The municipal safety commission does not have the authority to check the electrical installation of the crèche set up for years by the former volunteer and. the parish.
This volunteer and benefactor is Gilles Mangiantini, 66 years old, who knows all the technical settings…
Departure in pain
It was he who, in 2010, set up this system of musical and light entertainment, while retaining the original mechanisms, investing from his personal funds to acquire new Saint-Sulpician figurines, making it more every Christmas. attractive, in agreement with successive priests.
But since the arrival of Father Chalard, the flow has not passed between the two men. In February, Gilles Mangiantini had to resolve to leave the Suquet church. “ He did everything to get me to leave. He left me no choice. I got all my plaster figures. A painful departure”, he delivers, not without emotion after fourteen years of pampering this poetic evocation of the birth of Christ dating from 1920. “In March, I told him that I was at his disposal to start the crèche at Christmas, but he did not contact me.”.
But this enthusiast has found another setting to express his talents as an amateur crib maker. It was at Grasse Cathedral, in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, that he installed a large nativity scene, made new decorations, and installed spectacular polychrome plaster figures. To discover, a fixed crèche but the magic also works…
Praise God.
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