Christine Marlier is infuriated that President Emmanuel Macron called early elections this summer, and even more so that he appointed a right-wing prime minister even though his left-wing party won the most seats in parliament.
But Marielle left her anger at home in northeast France and took a four-hour bus ride to the outskirts of Paris for a nearly century-old festival celebrating left-wing politics in general and French Communism in particular.
Fête de Humanité (Festival of Humanity) is an unlikely mix of Burning Man, Woodstock and a political rally.
“We never get angry here,” said Marielle, 51, as she and her husband drank one-euro shot glasses of booze, both with sparkles on their faces.
They stood in the middle of a dirt path between big white booths set up by Communist associations from around the country, serving up local specialties like raw oysters, steamed lobster, giant pots of tartiflette and achoûre, a Basque dish of minced veal.
A loudspeaker advertised an upcoming debate between Fabien Roussel, head of France’s Communist Party, and one of the country’s leading trade union leaders, but Marielle and her husband were already drunk and had planned to go see a band play instead.
“Here we feel like we are dreaming, away from all our everyday problems and worries,” says Marielle, who works with disabled children at a primary school in the Moselle department, which borders Germany and Luxembourg.
Each year, on the second weekend in September, when the country usually awakens from its holiday slumber, festival organizers build a giant village out of mud and grass at an abandoned military airport, in a remote part of Paris where residential areas give way to cornfields. Stages are raised and long rows of some 350 large booths create streets, often named after fallen French Communist heroes.
Every year, dozens of musicians come to perform. Past performers include artists such as Manu Chao, Pink Floyd, Ray Charles and Youssou N’Dour, as well as French stars such as Aya Nakamura and Zaho de Sagazan.
These booths will then host hundreds of political debates, talks and Q&A sessions throughout the three days of the festival, with 360 booths set up this year from morning until night.
So on a Saturday afternoon you could watch a trade union leader face off against a representative of the employers’ association, see Judith Godrèche’s latest short film about the rape epidemic, “Moi Aussi,” in a big film tent, watch a children’s play, and run up to Angela Davis’ stage to hear French musician Santa sing a lyrical tune, all at roughly the same time.
Or you can join the crowds crowding around “the agora,” the central red booth where the big speeches take place, and meet Davis himself: the former California philosophy professor, activist and Communist Party presidential candidate returning to the festival for the third time since 1973.
“Hope is a discipline that must be cultivated,” she said, her voice booming over the loudspeaker, “because without hope, there is no possibility of moving forward.”
The event, which followers call the “Humanité Festival,” began in 1930 as a fundraiser for the Communist Party’s official newspaper, Humanité. Today, the left-leaning daily paper is no longer the party’s official mouthpiece, but continues to organize the annual festival.
Despite a budget that has ballooned to around 8 million euros, the festival barely breaks even most years, said L’Humanité publisher Fabien Gay, a Communist senator and the festival’s publisher.
That’s because, sticking to its founding principle that the festival should provide culture for working people, the paper has refused to raise ticket prices: Gay pointed out that for 60 music concerts over three days, the maximum price is just 60 euros, the average price for a concert in Paris.
“This is for us communists, this is why we fight. Everything exceptional and spectacular must be available to everyone,” said France’s Communist leader, Roussel, who spent part of the celebrations in full campaign mode despite the election not being close, shaking hands, patting shoulders and visiting party booths around the country.
During the interview, he fondly recalled French designer Yves Saint Laurent’s fashion show in 1988, which he called a “work of art” and compared to Picasso’s “Mona Lisa” and “Guernica” – the latter also had an exhibition here.
“The body must always be nourished, but the mind must be nourished as well,” Roussel said.
Arriving at the gala site, 22 miles south of central Paris, is like entering another world, where the Communists merrily govern France and have not lost any seats in the National Assembly, including since Mr. Roussel took power last summer. The party currently holds just nine seats in the 577-seat parliament.
This isn’t a KFC, but a CFK (Communist Fried Kitchen), where Colonel Sanders has transformed into Marx: red flags with hammer and sickle flies from the booth awnings, and people are wearing Communist shirts and hats.
(In 1945, when memories of the French Communist Party’s pivotal role in the Resistance were still fresh, about a million people flocked to the festival; this year, Gay said, 450,000 people attended.) Many people will come just for the music, but organizers are hoping others will also take part in the talks and discussions, especially those camping in the roughly 8,000 tents set up on the sidelines of the festival.
“Millions of French people were communists at one point in their lives, and they come back every year because they feel they are part of the family,” explained Frederic Geneve, a high school history teacher who has written four books on the history of French communism and signed his latest at the festival’s book fair. “It’s a confirmation of what we believe.”
Most of the festival’s work is done by 10,000 volunteers, who arrive in a convoy from Biarritz, 475 miles away, towing stoves, refrigerators, mattresses and kegs of beer.
For two weeks, they build community booths, set up kitchens and sleeping quarters, and tell stories late into the night. For many families, this is a tradition that goes back generations.
“Volunteering gives you a glimpse into what the world is like,” said Catherine Lavauzel, 64, a retired teacher who began volunteering with her father when she was 7. “If we’re all doing our best and not constantly competing with each other.”
Cheap wine and beer help people bond. Add in music and love is sure to be born, another theme of the festival, according to Geneva, who met both of his ex-wives here.
Not only did Gregory Moser meet his wife Noémie there, but they married there 11 years ago.
“We got married at the Cuba booth and had a wine reception at the People’s Republic of China booth,” Moser said with a laugh, standing outside the Charente booth where the couple continue to volunteer. After the ceremony, friends showed the newlyweds around the festival in a golf cart pulling a cooking pot.
People often predict the demise of the festival but are always proven wrong.
Similarly, each year after the revelers have departed, Lavauzelle rubs her sleepy eyes, packs away the sink and stove, peels the tent from the muddy ground and makes the long drive home, swearing it will be the last time. But it won’t be the last.
“That feeling brings us back,” she says, “and it makes us feel better when we return to real life for the rest of the year.”
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting.
