Casablanca, guest city for 2024 La Mercè festival
Barcelona mayor highlights chance to get to know a nearby but not well-known culture better
Casablanca will be the guest city of the 2024 La Mercè festival, as announced by Barcelona City Council.
La Mercè is Barcelona's biggest public street festival, with hundreds of free cultural activities organized over the weekend closest to September 24.
Collboni's council thus maintains the tradition of reserving a place of honor for a city with which there is a special bond, with the aim of strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation.
The mayor of the Moroccan city, Nabila Rmili, has accepted the invitation "with honor," and a delegation from the Barcelona government will travel there this weekend to start drawing up the details of the collaboration.
Jaume Collboni, mayor of the Catalan capital, considers the Moroccan community "very important" in Barcelona and celebrated that Casablanca accepted the invitation.
The Barcelona city councilor in charge of culture, Xavier Marcé, and the La Mercè festival team will meet with the deputy mayor of cooperation and international relations, Abderrahim Outass, and various local performing arts companies in view of bringing the best artistic proposals to the Catalan festival.
Collboni considers that Casablanca's participation is an "opportunity" to better get to know a culture "that is very close to us but that we sometimes don't know enough about."
Rmili said that "Casablanca and Barcelona are two cosmopolitan and lively cities, which share a passion for culture and creativity."
"We have a rich and inspiring heritage, and we are committed to a common path of promoting culture as a fundamental pillar of development," she added.