The sight of the French police seeing 2,500 people break a national curfew to attend an illegal rave has embarrassed the government and led to questions as to why the party was allowed two nights.
The event started last Thursday on New Year’s Eve at two unused hangars in a rural area in the northwestern region of France and became an important international news report the next day.
But it lasted until Saturday morning, more than 36 hours after tech music first started firing from the shores of speakers, before police entered the premises and confiscated material and warned participants.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who regularly uses incidents of crime or disorder as evidence of France’s alleged decline, accuses centrist President Emmanuel Macron of being “overwhelmed by a simple rave party”.
For her, the occasion showed ‘the worrying collapse of state authority’, while the local head of her party claims that the police ‘capitulated’ in front of a few punks with dogs.
Reactions on social media ranged from envy among those who missed most of 2020 night beats due to the coronavirus pandemic, to ridicule and accusations of double standards.
Some suggested that the police would react differently if the party was held in a predominantly immigrant area outside Paris, where heavy-handed arrests were in the spotlight during recent protests against Black Lives Matter.
Others contrasted the passive policing with the measures taken against protesters of the “yellow vest” in 2019, who sometimes received illegal street demonstrations regularly with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
– Secret location –
Local authorities have defended their decisions, but there are still questions – especially why the rave is not prevented in the first place.
The Interior Ministry said before New Year’s Eve that 100,000 police would be on duty to prevent gatherings or illegal parties, with France under a nationwide overnight clock of 8-6 to prevent social mixing.
Daily new cases of coronavirus are still around 15,000 and the government has closed pubs and restaurants since a second national exclusion began on 30 October.
Although police were aware that a rave was being organized thanks to online intelligence gathering, they were kept guessing until the last minute about its location – just like the partygoers themselves.
Security forces were patrolling several sites in eastern and central France but were caught off guard when organizers switched to warehouses near the town of Lieuron, south of the city of Rennes.
“It was announced after 8pm, after the start of the curfew rule,” Britain prefect Emmanuel Berthier told reporters. “Security forces learned from it at the same time as potential participants.”
Vans with sound equipment, generators and DJ decks had already arrived when police tried to stop people from entering by car or on foot.
A relatively small number of officers were in the minority and showered with stones and bottles in the subsequent absence. A police car was set on fire and three officers were lightly injured.
“It is clear that the organizers have prepared their violent response to security forces,” Berthier claims.
– ‘Non-involvement’ –
Pierre Sauvegrain, who heads the national police in Brittany, said it had been decided to “disconnect” to prevent the situation from degenerating further.
Police say they then focused on access restriction and said that on New Year’s Eve no new vehicles arrived after 22:00.
The rave was allowed to continue, generating the damaging images played on French television and abroad of police standing there while music was blowing out in the background.
“Once it’s done with 2,000 people, you can not stop it,” an experienced organizer told AFP over the weekend.
The power could not be cut, because the organizers had generators, and the police were not willing to clean up the area by force – or could not scrape together enough numbers to do so.
After a meeting at the Interior Ministry on Friday night – in the wake of how serious the situation has become, Minister Gerald Darmanin, chaired by it – was sent reinforcements.
Before dawn on Saturday, the sound systems stopped, the participants started to leave and by morning the police had moved in and taken control.
They warned 1,200 people because they had violated coronavirus restrictions and hundreds more because of drug offenses. Police used torches to examine the eyes of ravers for evidence of the use of ecstasy or other drugs.
Two people, both in their early twenties, were arrested as suspected organizers and are fined if convicted.
One of them was charged late Monday with “threatening the lives of others” and arrested, the Rennes prosecutor told reporters.
On the wall of one of the hangars is a hand-painted slogan: “Nothing can stop people from dancing.”
lg-adp / jh / jj / tgb