More than 3,500 people in France gathered in a small town on Saturday (14th March) to break the world record of “most people dressed as smurfs”.
The event happened one day before the country banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19.
According to National Post, over 3,500 people painted their faces and hands blue, wore pointy white or red hats and came together in Landerneau amidst the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak that has badly hit Europe.
The mayor of the town even defended the gathering and said that it was necessary in this time of “ambient gloom”.
“We must not stop living….it was the chance to say that we are alive,” he said.
“We figured that a bit of fun would do us all good at the moment.”
Despite strong advice that people should stay home and avoid crowds as much as possible, participants of the event were not swayed by the threat of the virus.
“We figured we wouldn’t worry and that as French people we wouldn’t give up on our attempt to break the world record,” an attendee said.
“And now we’re champions of the world, we’re going to smurferize the coronavirus!”
As of now, France has a total of 9,043 cases including 602 recoveries and 175 deaths.
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