This Saturday, October 12, a new wave of repression against the Free Party movement was launched by the French authorities. While a teknival was organized in an industrial wasteland in Moselle, located near the town of Phalsbourg, a very important law enforcement system came to spoil the party.
The media France Bleu speaks of 70 mobile gendarmes deployed, reinforced by 170 additional soldiers over the weekend. The images taken by the partyers show a column of gendarmes armed with LBDs and supported by a helicopter attack an abandoned hangar and fire tear gas at the free party. The gendarmes seized the sound equipment used to party.
All this is irrational: such an expensive device to protect what? A concrete slab and a field, in an abandoned area in eastern France? What is the government’s objective? This is to prevent any spontaneous celebration, any self-managed event that escapes institutions.
On May 12, a very large police and gendarmerie force charged into a field in Maine-et-Loire to attack a free party bringing together thousands of partygoers. The police fired a large number of tear gas and explosive grenades and rubber bullets.
There is also in everyone’s memory the charge of the music festival in Nantes in 2019, which caused Steve’s death. But also the 2021 New Year’s Eve party repressed in Lieuron or the militarized assault of a Free Party in Redon in June 2021, which cost the hand of a young man, after explosive grenades were fired by gendarmes in the middle of a field, in the middle of the night.
Each time a party has taken place without repression, it has ended peacefully. Every time the police intervene, there is chaos. The State chose to escalate tension.
