(Paris) From Sydney to Paris via Damascus or Tbilisi, the world celebrates the entry into 2025 on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday with force and fireworks, at the end of a year marked by Olympic gold, the thunderous return of Donald Trump to the White House, but also new upheavals in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Posted at 11:24 a.m.
Updated at 9:30 p.m.
Steven TRASK
Agence France-Presse
The year 2024, which will certainly be the hottest on record, has also seen natural disasters made worse by global warming, from the deadly heatwave of the Mecca pilgrimage to the tragic floods of the Kathmandu Valley.
After Asia-Pacific which opened the ball on the 31st, the festivities continued in the Middle East and Europe.
Five months after the euphoria of the Olympic Games, Paris has once again donned bright clothes for the transition to the new year. More than a million people gathered on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, closed to vehicles and lined with dozens of glittering trees.
PHOTO THOMAS SAMSON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Crowds gather to celebrate the New Year on the famous Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris
“I had a great year in 2024. And I wish all years were like 2024! », enthuses Mark Coppels, a Belgian dancing frantically on the Parisian cobblestones.
In Britain, thousands of people gathered on the banks of the Thames in London to watch the fireworks, but bad weather forced the cancellation of events in other cities, including Edinburgh.
In a New Year’s speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine should fight in 2025 on the “battlefield” but also at the “negotiation table” to end nearly three years of Russian invasion.
In Tbilisi, tens of thousands of pro-European demonstrators gathered in front of the Georgian parliament to celebrate the new year, continuing their month-old protests against the government’s decision to suspend the EU accession process.
PHOTO GIORGI ARJEVANIDZE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Tens of thousands of pro-EU protesters gathered outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi to celebrate the New Year
In Serbia, thousands of students demonstrated in several cities during the festivities to demand accountability after the roof of a train station in the north of the country collapsed which killed 15 people in November.
In Sydney, in one of the easternmost time zones on the planet, more than a million spectators gathered in the city self-proclaimed “New Year’s Capital of the World”.
PHOTO BIANCA DE MARCHI, REUTERS
More than a million spectators, gathered in Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world”, watched at midnight (8 a.m. Eastern time) nine tons of fireworks light up the sky above its unmissable opera house and the Harbor Bridge.
The notable events of 2024
In light news, the year 2024 will have been marked by the record-breaking tour of American pop star Taylor Swift.
But also by the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, which brought together all the continents.
PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The city of Paris, France, hosted the Summer Olympic Games in July and August 2024.
Last year, millions of people went to the polls in more than 60 countries.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin once again won a presidential election despite accusations of fraud, while in Bangladesh, a student movement dethroned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina despite a violent crackdown.
No vote has been as scrutinized as that of November 5 in the United States, won by former President Donald Trump, targeted by two assassination attempts and criminally convicted.
PHOTO RICK SCUTERI, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
US President-elect Donald Trump
Hopes for peace
2024 will have been a year of upheaval also in the Middle East, with the end of more than fifty years of the undivided reign of the Assad clan over Syria, but also the return of the Israeli army to southern Lebanon.
In the center of Damascus, hundreds of people gathered waving their flags in the colors of the “revolution”, expressing their “hope” for the new year, after thirteen years of civil war in the battered country.
PHOTO AMR ABDALLAH DALSH, REUTERS
Syrians celebrate New Year in central Damascus
“I hope that the Syria of 2025 will be a non-confessional, pluralistic Syria, for all, without exception,” says Havan Mohammad, a Kurdish student from Qamichli in the northeast of the country.
In the Gaza Strip, civilians say they are exhausted by the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, triggered by the attack of October 7, 2023.
PHOTO OMAR AL-QATTAA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A camp for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, December 31, 2024
On the program for 2025
On the entertainment side, Oasis, emblematic BritPop group, will make their comeback in the summer, while K-pop icons, BTS, have promised their “ARMY” of fans to meet them again after June, once military service is completed.
PHOTO LEE JIN-MAN, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The members of the Korean group BTS in 2021.
Football lovers will be able to enjoy a Club World Cup in the United States expanded to 32 teams.
But after a year in 2024 that was even hotter than the previous one, 2025 is expected to be one of the three highest temperatures on record.
In the French archipelago of Mayotte, ravaged by Cyclone Chido, celebrating the transition to the year 2025 is not the priority of all the inhabitants, despite life which has gradually resumed. “We have children who are traumatized by Cyclone Chido, so we have nothing planned this evening,” says Nouria Rama, an employee in the administration.
But in the south of France, on the edge of the Mediterranean, despite the water being only 13 degrees, nearly 600 naturists took a dip at Cap d’Agde, for the traditional bath on December 31.
