Paris (AFP)

No festival before "mid-July": the major cultural events of the summer, starting with Cannes and Avignon, are more than ever threatened by the measures announced Monday evening by Emmanuel Macron to fight against the coronavirus.

. No stars on the Croisette?

On March 19, the Cannes Festival had already drawn a line under its initial dates, from May 12 to 23. The organizers nevertheless wanted to keep hope and were working on "several hypotheses", "the main one of which would be a simple postponement, in Cannes, at the end of June - beginning of July 2020".

But if we stop there, this event attracting 40,000 professionals and 200,000 spectators, the most important and prestigious in the world of cinema, will probably not be held this year.

It would not be the first time that this world crossroads of the 7th art has to give up. The May 1968 edition was thus interrupted after a sling led by filmmakers, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut at the head, in support of the student and workers movement. The first edition in 1939 was postponed to 1946 due to the Second World War. The 1948 and 1950 vintages were canceled for budgetary reasons.

Can Cannes, of which Spike Lee was to be president, be summed up this year as an online festival? Thierry Frémaux, general delegate, swept the idea aside in an interview with Variety last week: "For Cannes, its soul, its history, its impact, it is a model that could not work".

. Curtain for Avignon?

"We are worried but we still have hope", released AFP on April 8 the director of the Avignon Festival Olivier Py, unveiling that day, online, the "dream" programming of the edition 2020 (July 3-23).

Mr. Py raised the possibility of a postponement or a reduced form, with the question of knowing, in the event of maintenance, if the public will still be there. A certainty remained in his words at the time: "if the deconfinement does not occur in the second half of May, it will be difficult to organize a festival".

The Cité des Papes usually becomes the "theater capital" each July, attracting 700,000 visitors. There is the main Festival, known as the "in" but above all the "Off", even larger (more than 1,500 shows, by a thousand companies in 200 theaters in the city).

The economic spinoffs for Avignon are around 100 million euros, according to estimates, including 25 million generated by the "in". A cancellation would be catastrophic for thousands of artists and technicians, including many intermittent workers. Since its creation in 1947, the Festival has only been canceled once, in 2003, in the midst of the intermittent workers' conflict.

. Music: Silence, are we not shooting anymore?

The references of the genre abroad for current music had set the tone: Coachella, in California, is postponed in October, The Great Escape and Glastonbury will not take place in 2020 in the United Kingdom.

Since then, the essential French - Eurockéennes (2-4 July, 128,000 spectators in 2019), Francofolies (10-14 July, 150,000), Vieilles Charrues (16-19 July, 270,000) or Rock en Seine (29 August-1 September, 100,000) - were shaking.

The first to make the decision for a clean year were the Printemps de Bourges (200,000 spectators in 2019), which was to be held at the end of April, then the Hellfest (June, 180,000 spectators), the Lollapalooza (July, 95,000 spectators) and Solidays (June, 228,000 spectators).

Can July festivals postpone? And do those of August or September have guarantees? Nothing is less sure. "There are American artists, who are building their six-week block European tour: will they come when their number of dates has already reduced with the first cancellations? Without our headliners, the situation becomes unbearable ", declared to AFP in early April Arnaud Meersseman, head of AEG Presents France, which has in its portfolio Rock en Seine.

"The economic crisis hangs in our face: are people going to spend 80 to 100 euros on a festival?", He wondered in conclusion.

© 2020 AFP