On Monday, the French National Assembly will start reviewing a new governmental bill aiming to crack down on unauthorised outdoor gatherings, or 'free parties'.
When partying clashes with politics... France is looking to tighten its legislation around the unauthorised outdoor techno gatherings - known as "free parties".
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Today, just a day after the country’s annual Fête de la Musique, the French National Assembly will start reviewing a new bill against disturbances to public order.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez says the “Ripost” bill should provide a “shock of authority” and bring “immediate responses to issues that disrupt public order, security and peace” for French citizens, a move welcomed by right-wing lawmakers.
The legislative text is set to tackle a wide set of practices, from laughing gas consumption to squatting, but attention has especially revolved around the section addressing free parties.
Originating from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s, the free party movement advocates for an unrestricted and anti-capitalist approach to partying, and has since spread throughout Europe. Most of these outdoors gatherings are self-regulated and demand no entrance fee, unlike rave parties. Forget exclusive nightclubs: a field and a sound system blasting techno music is all that it takes to have fun.
The concept is not to everyone’s liking. In 2022, at the instigation of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s new government, Italy made the organisation of unauthorised outdoor parties punishable by up to six years in jail and a €10,000 fine.
Proponents of free parties now say the new French bill is putting the movement’s values at risk.
In early May, between 20,000 and 40,000 people gathered near Bourges, in central France, to dance on an old military site and protest the Interior Minister’s plan to restrict free parties.
In the following days, the French Senate passed a series of measures included in the “Ripost” bill. Gatherings of more than 250 people must now be reported to the authorities (compared to 500 previously). Senators voted to make the organisation of free parties punishable by two years’ imprisonment and a fine of €30,000.
The Senate also introduced a new and controversial offence targeting participants, who could now face up to six months in jail and a €7,500 fine for attending a free party.
The French left denounces a repressive bill. Lawmaker Mathilde Panot, an executive from the leftist La France Insoumise party, called on the government to “leave the young people of this country in peace.”
The National Assembly is set to decide in the coming weeks whether or not to uphold the measures passed by the Senate.
“The free party scene is under threat,” the movement's support group Tekno Anti Rep said in a Facebook post earlier this month. “Our culture may be controversial, but believe us, it is far from dead.”
