- Title: Seeing double: hundreds of twins gather for festival in France
- Date: 15th August 2019
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) FESTIVAL ORGANISER AND FOUNDER ALAIN LAUNAY SAYING: "It was my idea to bring together twins to make the girls (my twin daughters) happy. It's really because I noticed from early on, and my wife too, that twins like meeting other twins. They have a special sort of language, they understand each other straight away. Even if they come here for the first time, you get the sense that they've known each other forever. And this is marvelous. And we notice it every year, the people who arrive here for the first time, find themselves integrated in a group right away, they become part of the colony of twins." VARIOUS OF TWO SETS OF TWINS, AMONG THEM AXELE AND LISE, ALL IN MATCHING OUTFITS, POSING FOR SELFIE (SOUNDBITE) (French) AXELE AND LISE, 22-YEAR-OLD TWINS, WITH AXELE SAYING: "In fact, we used to sleep in the same bedroom, and we had a nightmare. We dreamed we were hit with a bullet between the eyes. When we woke up we had a circle between our eyes, it made us really scared, but at the same time, in the same moment, we both woke up. It's a bit weird, yeah. At the time, it was a bit weird." VARIOUS OF 30-YEAR-OLD ARMENIAN TWINS SEVANA AND ANI, LIVING IN GERMANY, TALKING WITH ANOTHER SET OF TWINS (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) 30-YEAR-OLD ARMENIAN TWIN LIVING IN GERMANY, SEVANA, SAYING: "So we got informed about, always our relatives told, our friends told [us], why don't you participate in [a] twin meeting or twin gathering, and we were always interested, and then we had three days' holidays and then we found out about this fest and we decided to participate."
- Embargoed: 29th August 2019 16:53
- Keywords: twin festival France multiplets twins triplets quadruplets multiple births
- Location: PLEUCADEUC, FRANCE
- City: PLEUCADEUC, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA005ASBXX09
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: It's a festival times two on Thursday (August 15) in a town in Brittany, where around 1,500 twins, triplets and quadruplets of all ages gathered to share anecdotes, enjoy music and play games, as they don identical outfits.
The municipality of Pleucadeuc, in northwestern France, has been hosting the annual twin festival since 1994, attracting participants from around France and other countries.
Alain Launay, the mayor of Pleucadeuc, founded the festival in honour of his twin daughters Cecile and Aurelie.
"I noticed from early on, and my wife too, that twins like meeting other twins. They have a special sort of language, they understand each other straight away," Launay said.
Twins shared stories of their special bond, and situations that suggested a sixth sense between them.
"On our birthday, we decided to make a puzzle. I wanted to buy her a puzzle with a photo from our holiday last year, and she ended up giving me the same puzzle with the same photo, without having talked about it," 25-year-old Charlotte said, about her and her twin, Carole.
The festival has also been a venue for matchmaking - twins Julien and Fabrice, 49, are married to twins who they met at the same event 20 years ago.
This year, the town treated guests to a parade, meet and greet sessions, musical performances, games, and a disco - organised by over 400 volunteers from the Pleucadeuc's Twins and More Association.
The star performers of the festival are the Phoenix Twins, a duo of singing twins who featured on the reality TV singing show The Voice France.
Around 12,458 twin births, 167 triplet births and 8 quadruplet briths were recorded in France in 2017, comprising more than 17% of total births, an INSEE study found.
In the U.S., twin birth rate increased by 76 per cent from 1980 to 2009, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The rise is widely attributed to the increasing popularity of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), which can result in twin births due to the implanting of multiple embryos in the womb.
(Production: Udi Kivity, Michaela Cabrera, Kathryn Carlson) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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