FRANCE. A special ATM issue for Brest


While the great majority of French ATM issues, since 1999, have been related to philatelic and postal events or subjects, since 2009, Phil@poste has released a few vignettes événementielles, - ATMs commemorating important non philatelic events. For example, the issues dedicated to the 600th anniversary of King Rene 1er d'Anjou's birth (see article >>>, also published in VARIABLE 14), the 100 years of the creation of French naval aviation (see article >>>, and VARIABLE 18), or the Journées Européennes du Patrimoine in Aix-en-Provence (see article >>>, and VARIABLE 22). In fact, Phil@poste is already working to establish the rules for new ATM subjects in the future, which will be mainly devoted to recurring philatelic and/or national events.

One of these événementielles issues has been released for Brest, in the department of Finistere, Brittany.
A new tramway was inaugurated on June 23rd 2012, and the great international festival of the sea, boats and seamen -'Les tonnerres de Brest'- was held from July 13th to 19th 2012. A sequence of especially important events for the city, which justified, according to Phil@poste criterion, the release of a new vignette LISA - the eighth in just the first half of 2012, by the way !


The fête internationale de la mer et des marins is a maritime festival held every fourth year, in July, in Brest. For a week, hundreds of traditional sailing vessels and boats from around the world meet in the city harbour. The festival also includes shows, animations, and other activities. The first festival was held in 1992, and in 2012, on the 20th anniversary, the festival became known as 'Les tonnerres de Brest'.

The first two tram lines were opened in Brest in 1898, and ran until the bombing of the city, in 1944, during WWII. In 2001, the town council decided to build a new tramway, as part of a vast urban renewal project, with a total cost of 383 million Euros. After 3 years of work, and some months testing the trains, the new Tram was launched on Saturday June 23rd 2012, during a festive weekend of shows and performances along the 14 km track of the first line in service. Thousands of people were very enthusiastic about the new transportation system, and took to the streets (pictures, the inauguration day in the Rue de Siam), crowding at the tram stops to travel on the new trains - free for the first 3 days.


The design of the new ATM is a composition by Patrick Le Bihan, created from the sea background of the 'Les tonnerres de Brest' poster (see the first image above), and a photograph of the new tramway, in the upper left corner, along with other elements related to the sea and the festival.

The special issue could be obtained from June 23rd 2012, (coinciding with the inauguration of the new tramway) from, at least, one of the IER LISA 2 distributors installed in different Brest post offices. In total, there were nine postal kiosks (one of them, a IER 950 NABUCCO), installed in 6 post offices.
On Saturday 23rd, La Poste installed two philatelic stands - one in front of the main post office, in the Rue de Siam, in the heart of the city and amongst the festive activities (images below), and another in the rue de la Porte, near the pont de Recouvrance (right). In addition to the vignettes LISA preprinted with common postage values, visitors could also purchase other postal and philatelic products associated with the city and the region, such as lots of pictorial prefranked envelopes, or the nice collector with 10 self-adhesive stamps (depicted below, right), released especially for 'Les tonnerres de Brest'.
 

Two special postmarks were available for these issues - one commemorating the tramway opening, with the date of the first day of issue of the ATM (left image), and another with a variable date for the fête internationale de la mer et des marins, which could be used from July 13th to 18th.


On the morning of Saturday 23rd, the ATM issue was available from the two IER LISA 2 Évolution distributors installed inside the main post office.
However, for convenience, most local people acquired the vignettes directly from the philatelic stand located just outside.

On Saturday afternoon, with the closure of the post office, the staff planned to set up an additional IER LISA 2 distributor in the small entrance hall (right), but because of technical problems it did not become available to the public. Finally, the staff decided to keep the post office partially open, with access limited to the self-service area.

It was expected that the issue, with an initial printing of 30,000 labels, would be available at postal kiosks until July 18th, - the ending of 'Les tonnerres de Brest'.

As for the recent thermal ATM issues, and according to the program tariff scheduled in the IER LISA 2 distributors, on the date of issue, it was possible to obtain ATMs of this design with up to 20 different texts, as well as stamps with no text - only the value.
- For domestic mail the texts available are: ECOPLI - LETTRE VERTE - LETTRE PRIORITAIRE - MINI MAX - (for registered mail) R L1 - R L2 - R L3 - (registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt) R L1 AR - R L2 AR - R L3 AR.
- For international mail, the texts are: LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE - PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL - (for registered mail) LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE R1 - LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE R2 - PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL R1 - PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL R2 - (registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt) LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE R1 AR - LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE R2 AR - PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL R1 AR - PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL R2 AR.
  Inland economic mail
ECOPLI
Inland priority mail (J+2)
LETTRE VERTE 		Inland priority mail (J+1)
LETTRE PRIORITAIRE
International priority mail
LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE 		Inland priority mail - Small parcel
MINI MAX
International priority mail - Small parcel
PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL		 Registered domestic mail, first security level (16 EUR)
R L1


Maximum cards 'Inauguration du tramway - Brest'. The left postcard shows a picture of one of the Citadis trains, manufactured by Alstom, during the first day of official testing, in October 2011. The right hand postcard shows another train, in early June 2012, some days before the inauguration.



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This page was created in July 2012 and last updated:  27.07.12 . English edition rewritten by S. Goodman (16.07.2012)