The sight of the French police as 2,500 people violated the national curfew to attend an illegal rave embarrassed the government and led to questioning why the party was allowed to continue for two nights.
The event began on New Year’s Eve last Thursday, in two disabled hangars in a rural area in northwestern Brittany, France, and became major international news the next day.
But it took until Saturday morning, more than 36 hours after techno music started playing over the speakers, before the police entered the premises and started confiscating the material and alerting participants.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who regularly takes advantage of incidents of crime or disorder as evidence of France’s supposed decline, accused center president Emmanuel Macron of being “overwhelmed by a simple rave party”.
For her, the event showed “the worrying collapse of state authority”, while the local chief of her party claimed that the police “capitulated to some punks with dogs”.
Reactions on social media ranged from envy among those who missed the opportunity to go to the club during most of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, to mockery and accusations of double standards.
Some suggested that the police would have reacted differently if the party had been held in a predominantly immigrant area outside Paris, for example, where violent arrests came under the spotlight during the recent Black Lives Matter protests.
Others compared passive policing with measures used against anti-government “yellow vest” protesters in 2019, whose sometimes illegal street demonstrations were often met with tear gas, shock grenades and rubber bullets.
– Secret location –
Local authorities have defended their decisions, but the questions remain – notably, why the rave was not stopped in the first place.
Before New Year’s Eve, the Interior Ministry had said that 100,000 police officers would be on duty to avoid illegal meetings or parties, with France under an 8 to 6 night curfew across the country to avoid social mixing.
New daily cases of coronavirus are still around 15,000, and the government has kept bars and restaurants closed since a second national blockade began on October 30.
Although the 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 – as were the party participants themselves.
Security forces were guarding several locations in eastern and central France, but were taken by surprise when organizers moved to warehouses near the village of Lieuron, south of the city of Rennes.
“It was announced after 8 pm, after the curfew began,” Brittany’s mayor Emmanuel Berthier told reporters. “Security forces learned about this at the same time as potential participants.”
Vans carrying sound equipment, generators and DJ decks had already arrived when the police tried to prevent people from entering the car or on foot.
A relatively small number of policemen were outnumbered and covered with stones and bottles in the ensuing stalemate. A police car was set on fire and three policemen were slightly injured.
“It is clear that the organizers prepared their violent reaction to the security forces,” said Berthier.
– ‘Non-involvement’ –
Pierre Sauvegrain, who heads the national police in Brittany, said the decision was made to “shut down” to “prevent the situation from further degenerating”.
Police said they then focused on restricting access and said that no new vehicles arrived after 10 pm on New Year’s Eve.
The rave was allowed to continue, generating harmful images broadcast on French television and outside the police waiting while the music played in the background.
“Once it starts with 2,000 people, you can’t stop it,” an experienced organizer told AFP over the weekend.
The power could not be cut off because the organizers had generators and the police were either unwilling to clear the area by force – or unable to gather enough to do so.
After a meeting at the Interior Ministry on Friday night – as a sign of how serious the situation was, it was chaired by Minister Gerald Darmanin himself – reinforcements were sent.
Before dawn on Saturday, the sound systems stopped, participants started to leave and by mid-morning the police came in and took over.
They warned 1,200 people for breaking coronavirus restrictions and hundreds of others for drug-related crimes, with police using torches to examine ravers’ eyes for evidence of ecstasy or other drug use.
Two people, both in their twenties, have been arrested as suspicious organizers and face heavy fines if found guilty.
One of them was accused on Monday of “endangering other people’s lives” and taken into custody, the Rennes prosecutor told reporters.
On the wall of one of the hangars, a hand-painted slogan said: “Nothing can stop people from dancing.”
lg-adp / jh / jj / tgb