The bar “Le Mora” announced the cancellation “on its own initiative” of an evening called “Ausländer Raus”, this Friday, June 28. The event, which was to be held on June 28, had just received the green light from the courts.
The xenophobic evening planned in Rouen by the bar “Le Mora” will ultimately not take place this Friday, June 28. The association responsible for the establishment published a press release announcing that this decision is “due to [leur] propre initiative”.
This Thursday, June 27, the mayor, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, had issued an order to ban the evening. The association had subsequently filed an interim relief application with the Rouen administrative court to request its suspension. The court ruled in their favor late Friday afternoon.
“The disturbance of public order resulting from an attack” on human dignity which would allow the mayor of Rouen to ban the evening “is not characterised in the circumstances”, wrote the interim relief judge in his order.
According to the judge, it has not been established at this stage that “the slogan Ausländer Raus which gave its title to the evening organized on June 28, 2024 by the Union Normande de France association comes, even probably, from propaganda or songs broadcast during the National Socialist regime (Nazi, editor’s note).”
“Ausländer Raus” is a xenophobic slogan that went viral after being hijacked by young people who sang it to the techno tune of “L’Amour toujours”, by DJ Gigi D’Agostino, sometimes embellished with Nazi salutes as we can see on some videos.
The association, for its part, “welcomes the fact that, under the terms of the decision rendered today, the administrative court of Rouen has recognised that the mayor of Rouen had seriously infringed fundamental freedoms, in particular freedom of expression”, reacted Le Mora.
She explained that she canceled the event to “take into account a certain emotion” recognizing the “provocative nature of the title of the evening”.
Around 300 people demonstrated on Friday evening, outside the area affected by the prefectural ban, to oppose “the racist and anti-foreigners evening organized by the bar”, noted an AFP correspondent. The prefect of Seine-Maritime has published an order prohibiting demonstrations due to “risk of disturbances to public order” for Friday June 28. The perimeter stretches around the bar, located rue Cauchoise, from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m.
In response, the mayor decided to appeal to the Council of State. “I maintain that a call for xenophobia […] has no place in Rouen or anywhere else in our Republic.”
