Firecrackers blast

Two years after the world's first divorce fair in Vienna, Austria, in 2007, Paris took the torch Sunday to hold its first divorce fair – the "New Start" salon, with some 5,000 people visiting the two-day fair Sunday.

"This fair targets people at the time of getting a divorce, and they are at the juncture of saying goodbye to Monday, while moving on to embrace a new departure," organizer Brigitte Gaumet told Le Monde.

Aiming at helping people going through a hard time and recovering from the trauma of separation, the fair provided counseling services related to the legal procedures of separation, and also psychological aid to those involved in a divorce.

The topics discussed ranged from "Plastic surgery's role in reconquering your image" to "Meeting on the Web" and "Separation: What does a lawyer do?" according to the AP.

According to the country's National Institute of Demographic Studies, the divorce rate in France has skyrocketed to 50 percent of marriages, with more than 130,000 divorces registered in 2007.

Unlike the lukewarm response from the public two years ago, this year the fair received overwhelming attention, both positive and negative.

"Choosing a lawyer can be really complicated, and this isn't the kind of thing you just want to pick someone randomly out of the yellow pages for," Rene, a middle-aged man faced with separation, told the AP.

His wife, meanwhile, thought the services offered in the fair were unreasonable. "Just because you're going to divorce doesn't mean you need to get laser hair removal or your fortune told; I think it's a bit weird, to be honest."