Scheduled at the same time as the first round, the Hellfest prefers not to get wet (and that’s regrettable)

The big metal festival opens this Thursday. While we know that the public there is more left-wing, the management continues to claim to be “apolitical”. Refraining from taking a position, isn’t that playing into the hands of the RN?

IA few days ago, we saw this widely shared tweet: “The legislative elections fall on the same day as Hellfest, a hard blow for the RN.” Or a little dig at metalheads, often suspected of leaning as far to the right politically as they like to wear long hair. Funny, no doubt, except that it is a completely false cliché. In 2019, Corentin Charbonnier, doctor in anthropology and teacher at the University of Tours, carried out a study (1) to find out the sociological profile of Hellfest festival-goers. We learned that this audience was made up of 65% men, with an average age of 32 years, and that they were generally employees (38%) or managers and higher intellectual professions (32%). And that less than 3% of them claimed proximity to the extreme right, compared to 12% of the extreme left (2). In 2015, a similar study carried out by Christophe Guibert and Gérôme Guibert had already demonstrated (3) that left-wing sympathizers were in the majority (41% of the total compared to 25% of respondents classifying themselves on the right, knowing that 34% do not feel concerned by politics), and that those who leaned towards the National Front represented “only” 7%, compared to 19% for the Left Front, the NPA, Lutte uvrière, or the Communist Party.

Surprisingly, Ben Barbaud, the boss of Hellfest, does not seem to have read or retained these studies – the questionnaire administered in 2019 was nevertheless developed with the approval of the festival management. A few days ago, ahead of the 2024 edition which opens this Thursday, he gave an interview to the site Forbes France and said this: “We never wanted to politicize ourselves and I think there are as many supporters of the far left as there are of the far right in our audience. It’s a reflection of today’s society. » It is therefore useless to look for Hellfest (4) among the signatories of platforms against the extreme right, as other major French festivals such as Les Vieilles Charrues, Les Eurockéennes de Belfort or Art Rock, in Saint-Brieuc, have done. which via their federation In concert! recalled that “art and culture have always been political, bulwarks against hatred, racism and obscurantism” ; or the Cabaret vert, in Charleville-Mézières, Marsatac, in Marseille, or even Les Suds, in Arles, members of the Union of Current Music, which called “all political forces opposed to the message of hatred and rejection embodied by the extreme right to do everything possible to obstruct the National Rally and its allies”.

Hellfest has had a good glimpse of the maneuvers of the extreme right over the years. We remember that in 2010 Christine Boutin, then president of the Christian Democratic Party, called for a ban on a festival that carried “the culture of death” and advocating “incitement to hatred”. This year again, a former departmental delegate from Reconquête relayed an anonymous petition demanding the cancellation of Hellfest Kids (a free day intended for one thousand two hundred children the day before the official opening), in order to “protect young people against harmful influences”. In these troubled times, be “apolitical”, as Ben Barbaud has been claiming for years, this means that we do not feel particularly worried about the idea of ​​the National Rally being brought to power. And that in itself is a political response.

Hellfest, a pilgrimage for metalheads, by Corentin Charbonnier, 2016, and French Metal Studied, collective, 2020. Self-publishing available on www.corentin-charbonnier.com

(1) Survey carried out using 8,515 usable responses.
(2) Of the total respondents, 31.4% did not express a political opinion, 43% were on the left, 14.3% on the right, 11.3% in the center.
(3) Christophe Guibert and Gérôme Guibert, “Political preferences and religious beliefs of metal festival-goers”, communication given at the International Society for Metal Music Studies conference, 2017, Canada.
(4) Contacted, the Hellfest communications manager did not respond to our requests