After weeks of uncertainty, the organizers of cultural events are beginning to see more clearly about maintaining or postponing their 2024 edition.
Rima Abdul Malak is committed: the festival Les Vieilles Charrues or the Interceltique de Lorient will take place in the summer of 2024, subject to an adjustment of their dates so as not to fall at the same time as the Olympic Games, the ministry announced on Tuesday of the culture.
At the end of October, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had aroused misunderstanding in the performing arts sector by evoking the need for cultural or sporting events to be “cancelled or postponed” in the summer of 2024, due to the massive mobilization of law enforcement for the Olympics (July 26 to August 11).
The biggest events are particularly concerned, which usually require reinforcements from CRS or mobile gendarmes.
“Solutions found”
But after a demining operation launched by the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak and consultations with the organizers, “solutions have already been found for most of these events in order to ensure their holding during the summer of 2024” , the ministry said in a statement.
“Les Vieilles Charrues goes to the weekend before, for example, the Interceltique de Lorient could be postponed after August 11. The Festival d’Avignon will also start earlier,” said the minister in an interview with Parisian Tuesday evening.
She also adds that the Francofolies de la Rochelle, the Hellfest and the Eurockéennes de Belfort “will be held” too.
Organizers and festivals in uncertainty
However, the organizers are much less optimistic. In the Figarothe management of the Festival d’Avignon assures that it is not yet able to confirm the dates put forward by the Ministry of Culture.
“These dates correspond to acceptable possibilities but are not official”, indicates Laurent Domingos, co-president of the off d’Avignon in the columns of the Figaro.
“These are working hypotheses, we still have to discuss them with the city, the prefecture and the venues”, specifies the direction of the festival.
The Lollapalooza festival, organized at the Longchamp racecourse in Paris, is also “a complicated case because it is in Île-de-France and is held during the Olympic events”, recognized Rima Abdul Malak.
“We continue to seek a solution with them,” continued the minister, mentioning among the tracks a possible change “of site, dates” or an agreement with another festival.
The Rock en Seine festival, which is to be held during the Paralympic Games, is also “still a case under study because in Île-de-France”.
No big festival from July 18 to August 11
The ministers concerned have set a framework for the prefects who must authorize or not the festivals in the summer of 2024.
Main restriction: the biggest events, requiring mobile gendarmes or CRS, cannot take place from July 18 to August 11, from the opening of the Olympic village until the end of the games, but the others, “usually secure by local or departmental forces, are intended to be maintained”, according to the press release from the ministry.
The festivals concerned may be postponed before July 17, when “all the events are intended to be maintained”, or in the following fortnight, from August 12 to 23, when “a few rare major events” can be held, before another period. restrictions during the Paralympics, from August 24 to September 8.
Rules that are still too “discretionary and random”, reacted to AFP Aurélie Hannedouche of Sma (Syndicat des Musiques Actuelles), who fears a continuation of “case by case, as during the Covid, instead of clear, readable rules , fair and effective”.