When was the last time you were plunged into total darkness, without any artificial light? In the city, and particularly in Paris, public and private lighting makes these natural, light-free nights a rarity. This Saturday, October 12 , 2024, a major awareness-raising operation is therefore being organized. Jour de la Nuit is back for its 16th edition, all over France. The idea is to draw French people's attention to the harmful consequences of light pollution at night, and take the opportunity to turn off the lights!
Launched in 2009 at the initiative ofAgir pour l'Environnement, Jour de la Nuit is a fully recognized annual event, involving several hundred local authorities and associations. Essentially educational, Jour de la Nuit is a festive event designed to raise public awareness of the effects of light pollution.
In all the country's major cities, many sites will remain unlit for the night. In Paris, major monuments and tourist sites will symbolically switch off their lights. The list of participating sites in 2024 has not yet been announced; in 2023, the following monuments took part in the operation: Hôtel de Ville, Arc de Triomphe, Panthéon, Sacré-Cœur, Opéra Garnier, Vendôme column, Académie du Climat, colonnes du trône à Nation, Invalides, Place de la Concorde, Petit Palais, Pont Alexandre III, Pont Bir-Hakeim and Pont Neuf, as well as some fifteen arrondissement town halls took part in this collective effort.
There are also a number of events taking place in Paris to learn more about nocturnal biodiversity. In particular, it's an opportunity to discover a starry sky in Paris: space lovers are invited to come and admire the sky from the Fédérico Garcia Lorca garden, located on the banks of the Seine. Note that the weather may not allow you to see these stars... TheClimate Academy is also organizing a conference on the subject, from 7pm to 9pm.
This Saturday, October 12, we can all do something simple for the environment: turn off the lights!
