© DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images People dressed as Smurfs, a Belgian comic franchise centred on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest, attend a world record gathering of Smurfs on March 7, 2020, in Landerneau, western France.

Neither Gargamel nor the coronavirus could stop a record-breaking Smurf gathering in France.

More than 3,500 people painted their faces and hands blue, wore pointy white or red hats, and came together on Saturday in the small town of Landerneau in northwestern France.

The event came a day before the country banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people in an effort to contain the coronavirus.

The mayor of Landerneau, Patrick Leclerc, defended the gathering, saying it was necessary levity in a time of “ambient gloom.”

“We must not stop living … it was the chance to say that we are alive” Leclerc said to AFP on Tuesday . “We figured that a bit of fun would do us all good at the moment.”

The world record for “most people dressed as Smurfs” was previously set in Lauchringen, Germany, when 2,762 people gathered in February, 2019.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people avoid crowds and stay home as much as possible during the ongoing crisis, yet many of the attendees were not swayed by the threat of the fast-spreading virus.

“We figured we wouldn’t worry and that as French people we wouldn’t give up on our attempt to break the world record,” one attendee said to AFP . “And now we’re champions of the world … we’re going to smurferize the coronavirus!.”

© DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images People dressed as Smurfs, a Belgian comic franchise centred on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest, attend a world record gathering of Smurfs on March 7, 2020, in Landerneau, western France.

As of Thursday, the novel coronavirus has infected nearly 2,300 people in France and has killed nearly 50.

The Smurfs started life as a Belgian comic about a colony of small blue creatures. It was adapted into a TV series, released in 1981, and three movies in the 2010s.