Paris (AFP)

Dedicated to Steve, the Nantais death at the Music Festival marked by a controversial police operation, the 21st Techno Parade gathered Saturday in Paris tens of thousands of young people and a few hundred "yellow vests" who have placed in the lead procession.

"We have not invited the yellow vests, we regret the recovery," said AFP Tommy Vaudecrane, president of Technopol, the historical association for the defense of electronic music that created the Techno Parade in 1998 with the support from former Minister of Culture Jack Lang.

"Strike, block, Macron clears", "Everyone hates the police" or "The street is everyone" chanted "yellow vests", slowing the procession of "teufeurs" and refusing to leave their vests. To the chagrin, according to the organizers, the family and loved ones of Steve Caniço.

An annual showcase for electronic music and culture, the parade of the 21st Techno Parade brought together 300,000 participants, according to the organizers, from the François Mitterrand quay, near the Louvre, in the place of Italy. More demanding than ever, it had for word "Let's dance for Steve" in tribute to the "teufeur" Nantes 24 years found drowned in the Loire.

Witness the leading banner bearing the name of Steve accompanied by drawings of CRS using tear gas and signs "justice for Steve".

Denouncing a "tension" against electronic music with several recent administrative closures of institutions, all actors of this musical stream had gathered this year "against the discrimination and misunderstanding of electronic music". A federation for the promotion and defense of electronic music could be created in the wake of the Techno Parade.

- "Release the pressure" -

In a message broadcast by several tanks, actors of electronic music have said that "it is high time that the state makes peace with the world of electronic music and, indeed, with its youth."

For his part, Jack Lang, present from the beginning of the event "does not want to imagine that there is a backtrack but there is a kind of nagging fear that resurfaces".

"We must restore a climate of respect and trust and ask the various authorities to behave with great openness to festivals and clubs," said the former Minister of Culture.

For Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, who visited several tanks, "we must release the pressure". "Trust has to be restored, maintaining pressure with permanent suspicion, as was the case ten years ago, is not an effective practice".

"We need a necessary and fruitful dialogue with the leaders of clubs, which for the great majority are very responsible people," added the mayor of Paris referring to recent administrative closures against major electro discotheques in the capital.

Several electro stars, among 200 DJs, were at the controls of the turntables to the rhythms of the different streams of techno music: House, Trance or Drum? N? Bass.

After fifteen years of absence, the boss of the techno hardcore, Manu Le Malin, has mixed on the "sound system" tank Technopol, accompanied by Boombass, half of the duo Cassius, who paid tribute to Philippe Zdar, disappeared in June, with the duo's flagship hit, "I Love You So," one of France's electro touch nuggets.

© 2019 AFP