Chinese workers are making preparations for an upcoming parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris. 

More than 7,500 performers, 54 decorated vehicles and 12 giant totems will present at the parade on January 24 to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year.

It is the first time that Paris opens one of its most famous landmark places -- the 1,200-meter long Champs-Elysees Avenue from the Arc of Triumph to the Round Point -- to a parade dedicated to a foreign culture.

The event is to mark the opening of the festival of Paris-Beijing Week, which comes in the framework of the Year of Chinese Culture in France inaugurated in October.

Groups of vehicles will be sumptuously decorated and a group of artists will march in the opposite direction, dancing with kites, balloons and a 50-meter long dragon. And 12 totems symbolizing the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac will also decorate the Champs-Elysees Avenue

(CRI January 24, 2004)