Paris (AFP)

No stars on the Croisette in the spring: faced with the coronavirus epidemic, the Cannes Festival has given up on being held, as planned, in May, but does not rule out a postponement of a few weeks.

After the Euro football and Roland Garros in the sporting world, both postponed, the Cannes festival was one of the last major international events to have made no announcement on its 2020 edition.

"Today, we have taken the following decision: the Cannes Film Festival cannot be held on the dates scheduled, from May 12 to 23," said the organizers Thursday evening in a press release, citing "several hypotheses", "including the main would be a simple postponement, in Cannes, end of June - beginning of July 2020 ".

"As soon as the evolution of the French and international health situation will allow us to assess the real possibility, we will make our decision known," said the press release.

A decision which will be taken in consultation with the State, the City of Cannes (south of France) as well as the professionals of the cinema, underline the organizers who express their "solidarity" with the people affected by the coronavirus. The 2020 edition must have director Spike Lee as president of the jury.

- The "decision to be imposed" -

After the publication in mid-March of an article evoking an outright cancellation, the festival had assured that no decision had been made, returning to mid-April, when the organizers had to reveal their selection of films in contention for Golden Palm.

The festival "studies with attention and lucidity the evolution of the national and international situation in consultation with the City of Cannes and the CNC" (National Center of Cinema and Animated Image). "They will take together, when the time comes, around mid-April, the decision that will be necessary," he said then on Twitter.

"We remain reasonably optimistic in the hope that the peak of the epidemic will be reached at the end of March and that we will breathe a little better in April," said Pierre Lescure, its president, at the beginning of March.

"But we are not oblivious. If this is not the case, we will cancel," he said.

In Cannes, several flagship trade fairs had already taken action in the face of the coronavirus epidemic: the Mipim for real estate and the 3rd edition of the Cannes Séries festival were postponed to later dates.

For Mip TV, the second major world event for television professionals initially scheduled for March 30 to April 2, a dry cancellation has been decided.

Event with a budget of 32 million euros, attracting 40,000 professionals and 200,000 spectators, the Cannes festival has been canceled or interrupted several times in its history.

- May 1968 -

The most emblematic case is the edition of May 1968, interrupted after a sling led by filmmakers, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut at the head, in support of the student and workers movement.

To a film buff annoyed by the turn of things, Godard launched in particular: "I am talking to you about solidarity with the students and you are talking to me about traveling and close-up shots", before cursing him.

Another highlight of this edition like no other: actress Géraldine Chaplin and director Carlos Saura clung to the curtain to prevent the screening of their own film.

The very first Cannes edition, that of 1939, was also canceled: it was to open on September 1, the date of the invasion of Poland by Germany.

Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, putting the project of a film festival in the south of France, competing with the Venice Film Festival, out for a few years.

Result: the very first Cannes festival will officially open on September 20, 1946. Undermined by budgetary difficulties, its future will remain uncertain for several years, with editions canceled in 1948 and 1950.

© 2020 AFP