The annual

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...

of Els Enfarinats () takes place in the town of Ibi in

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

, Spain on December 28, as part of celebrations related to the Day of the Innocents. Els enfarinats comes from the Valencian word for "breading", and roughly translate to "the breaded ones" or "the floured ones". In the day-long festival, participants known as the Els Enfarinats dress in mock military dress and stage a mock ''

coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...

''. Meanwhile, the Casats i Fadrins, accompanied by a band of street musicians called the Rondalla, known by the name of Sonet, Xirimita and Tabal, tour the city. At 8am, the Els Enfarinats take the city under the slogan "New Justice", and at 9am the Race for Mayor will take place in which it will be decided who is to be Mayor of the Els Enfarinats. Then, the act of ''L'Aixavegó'' is carried out in the ''Plaça de l'Església'' (Church Square), where the Els Enfarinats reside. Here, it is decided that those who do not pay the fine will go to jail. At midday, a collection called the Arreplegada dels Enfarinats takes place through the streets of the old quarter and of the city centre of Ibi, terminating in the Sant Joaquim Sanctuary. They exercise their authority under a blaze of fireworks, flour bombs and eggs. At five o'clock in the afternoon the authority of Els Enfarinats comes to an end giving way to the celebration of the traditional ''Dansà''. The tradition is over 200 years old.

References

BBC News
report of the 2010 festival.
Valencian community tourism website
Valencian culture Food and drink festivals in Spain December events Flour Massacre of the Innocents {{Spain-stub