Conceze Raspberry Festival

Every year the village of Concèze (19 Corrèze, Nouvelle Aquitaine) north of Brive-la-Gaillarde celebrates the humble raspberry – 10 July 2022 Fete de la Framboise

Amongst other things you can see the world’s biggest raspberry tart (with at least 23,800 raspberries! (and a diameter of over 3m and weighing over 185kg!)

Naturally you’ll have a chance to taste and buy pieces of the tart. fresh raspberries and all manner of raspberry-based products: jams, liqueurs, vinegars, sorbet….for more on the Conceze Raspberry Festival see www.framboises.com/
Conceze is famous for its raspberry festival held annually in July and features in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest raspberry tart made in place within the world. In August the village hosts a poetry festival. It is also recognised as one of the Floral Towns and Villages (Villes et Villages Fleuris) –

The Concours des villes et villages fleuris (“towns and villages in bloom competition”) is a contest organized annually in France which aims to encourage communes to adopt and implement policies that improve the quality of life of their inhabitants and enhance their attractiveness to visitors through the provision and maintenance of green spaces and the enhancement of their natural environments. Successful communes are awarded the right to display a badge (showing from one to four flowers) on road signs and in other local promotional material.

The competition was created in 1959 by the French state and it is administered by a distinct national committee since 1972. This committee is still linked to the Ministry of Tourism. All the French communes can take part and there are no application fees. There is not any limitation to the number of awarded communes, so they are not in competition between each other.

The label has experienced a large success since its creation. The first year, already 600 communes took part in it, and the figure rose to 5,300 in 1972, 10,000 in 1993 and 12,000 in 2005.

The label comprises four awards: one, two, three or four flowers, according to the efforts of the municipality. Each award is given according to strict criteria. The “Fleur d’Or” (golden flower) is a special prize awarded to a small number of applicants. Labelled communes display their flowers on road signs at their entrances.

As of 2015, there are some 12,000 awarded cities, towns and villages. They represent a third of all the French communes. 226 of them have 4 flowers wikipedia