In a quarry between Nantes and Rennes, DJ Maël Péneau once played drum and bass records for three days straight to thousands of “free party” ravers. Thirty years on, a proposed law would put the organisers of events like these behind bars.
Supporters of the bill, which would impose heavy fines and prison sentences on organisers of unauthorised raves – known as “free parties” – say the crackdown is about tackling the issues of public order, drugs, dangerous gatherings and damage to farmland.
But free party advocates say the fight is also about who gets to occupy public space in France.
They defend what they say is a counterculture – and the right to share music in a non-commercial setting without tickets, sponsors or official permission.
Péneau, an electronic music producer who goes by the name of Maëlstrom, was around 16 when he started organising free parties in western France in the late 1990s.
At his home studio in Nantes, he spreads faded photographs across the table. In one, his bright red lorry is parked beside stacks of speakers – the wall of sound. Another shows him, fresh-faced, leafing through vinyl as dogs saunter by, or DJing in the rain near a stone quarry “somewhere between Nantes and Rennes”.
“I was maybe 20 at this party,” he says. “We didn’t ask anyone. A couple of cops showed up but they didn’t really bother us.”
The parties could last two or three days. A few flyers left in record shops were enough to pull in thousands of people every weekend.
“At the time there was nowhere to play the kind of music we wanted to play,” he says. “There was one bar and one club in Nantes, but they were playing French touch and disco house. We were into much harder music. So the only way for us to share this music with others was to make the parties ourselves.”
Listen to a conversation with Maël Péneau on the Spotlight on France podcast:
‘Collective energy’
The free party scene in France followed in the footsteps of British rave culture, which had flourished from the mid-1980s until the 1994 UK Criminal Justice Act effectively outlawed these unauthorised gatherings by banning music with repetitive beats.
“One of the first memories I have were English sound systems like Spiral Tribe,” Péneau says. “That’s where the inspiration came from.”
The parties were free – organisers would sell drinks, cassette tapes and records to cover the cost of diesel for generators and sound systems. People donated what they could at the entrance.
Not only did Péneau learn his craft by playing for six or seven hours non-stop, the free party spirit was “foundational” to the way he now makes music.
“DJs or performers were not at the centre of the events… It was a really collective energy,” he explains. “That’s something that I’m trying to reinject in my projects and music today.”
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Toughening up the law
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, when the free party scene was at its height, Péneau says he would regularly perform in front of up to 20,000 people.
But in 2001, France clamped down on these events. Under a new security law, any musical gathering of more than 500 people had to be declared in advance to the prefecture, and sound equipment could be seized.
Last month, MPs at France’s National Assembly voted to go much further.
Under the proposed law, organisers of unauthorised free parties could face six months in prison and fines of up to €5,000. Participants would be fined €1,500. The attendance threshold requiring authorisation from local authorities would also fall from 500 people to 250.
The bill is still to pass through the Senate, where the right-wing majority is expected to vote in favour.
Supporters say the measures are overdue.
“Freedom cannot exist without responsibility,” said Laetitia Saint-Paul, the centrist MP behind the bill, explaining that residents of her constituency had demanded action after free parties had been repeatedly held in the area in recent years.
Farmers complain of vehicles driving through fields and damaging crops, she argued, while local officials have objected to the cost of emergency services and mobilising police officers.
Saint-Paul said the issue became more personal after she was contacted by families of young men who had died at free parties – although she also acknowledged that because the gatherings are undeclared, authorities have no reliable figures for deaths or overdoses linked specifically to such events.
“There are victims – the property owner, the residents, the emergency workers,” she told France Television’s Dimanche Politique.
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‘A stand-off’
Days after MPs voted on the bill, France’s biggest annual Teknival rave took place on an abandoned military site near Bourges – close to the hometown of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez – defying warnings over unexploded munitions.
The Interior Ministry said 23,000 people attended, while organisers claimed it was closer to 40,000, from France and across Europe.
Police issued €135 fines to teufeurs – French slang for ravers – and made 18 arrests. Nuñez said six gendarmes were injured in clashes and 12 people were taken to hospital, including some “due to drug consumption”.
“Thirty thousand rioters turning our countryside into lawless zones – that’s no cause for celebration, it’s a provocation against the Republic,” right-wing MP Eric Michoux told fellow lawmakers in the National Assembly, slamming “violent open-air drug dealing”.
The Teknival organisers chose the Bourges location as a protest against both Saint-Paul’s bill and a government measure known as RIPOST, yet to be voted on, that would increase fines for organisers of illegal raves to €30,000.
“It’s a stand-off now,” said Sylvain Gillet, a former organiser who now acts as a mediator between ravers and local authorities.
Gillet insists many events are smaller than the state suggests and says police frequently seize sound systems even when gatherings fall below the legal threshold.
He also rejects the idea that free parties are uniquely linked to drug use.
“It’s something societal,” he said. “You see it in free parties, but you also see it in clubs, festivals, everywhere.”
Addiction France, a non-profit organisation campaigning against drug abuse, has described the bill as counterproductive, arguing it could drive recreational drug use further underground.
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‘Moral panic’
Péneau does not shy away from the issues raised by detractors, recalling parties held in farmers’ fields and protected natural areas. “You can only agree that it’s not ideal,” he admits.
But he argues for more collaboration between free party organisers and local authorities.
Following the 2001 law, he and his friends tried organising a free party and obtained all the necessary authorisation.
“We did everything properly,” he says. “Doctors, firefighters, civil protection, police.” The costs were overwhelming.
Organisers say they’re trapped between going under the radar and a legal model that is too expensive for young collectives with no commercial backing. Gillet said one recent legal multi-sound event cost €18,000 in emergency medical care alone.
Péneau argues helped is needed to preserve the non-commercial side to free parties. “If that means [the state] funding it in some way, why not?”
But for the time being, he says, France’s approach is one of “moral panic, probably pushed by right-wing media”.
“They only approach it from a repressive angle, a policing angle, not from a cultural and a social angle.”
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Double standards
Last December, France added electronic music to its national cultural heritage list with a view to obtaining Unesco recognition.
In view of the proposed clampdown, Péneau says there’s “clearly a double standard happening there,” citing DJs such as David Guetta being invited to the Elysée Palace.
Free parties have survived partly because they have resisted becoming spectacles built around such celebrity DJs and social media clips, he argues.
“Since the advent of social media and vertical videos, [electro] became something very individual,” he says. “It’s really about the self and the ego and that’s something really far from the values of this free party culture.”
He believes sending people to jail for organising a party is both impracticable and nonsensical in the current climate.
“You can’t really be scared about kids being on their smartphones all the time,” he says, “and at the same time be scared that they’re coming together at the weekend and dancing together for two days.”
For more on France’s “free party” culture, listen to the Spotlight on France podcast.
