Évry, Essonne coming from as far away as Canada, but only 500 visitors watched the ceremony on a giant screen erected in the nearby park. The following political parties have a permanent base in Évry: The composer Gioachino Rossini had a country residence in Évry to be near his friend Edmond de Goncourt, who lived on the opposite bank of the Seine in Draveil. It was here that he wrote the greater part of his opera "The Barber of Seville". On 16 November 1943, Resistance fighter Missak Manouchian was arrested during a gun battle on the banks of the Seine, a few
Rossini Opera Festival established in 1980 with the aim of making the world more aware of Rossini's neglected operas and presenting all of them in collaboration with the G. Ricordi & Co. music publishing house, which published their critical editions. Of the approximately three dozen operas written, only a handful are regularly presented. On 13 August 1993, the Italian parliament unanimously approved the Special Law N. 319 "Regulations in support of the Rossini Opera Festival", which recognizes the Pesaro Festival's achievements in the reviving of Rossini's operas as entitled to be included among the state-supervised works of restoration of the national artistic heritage.