Paris (AFP)

Rock en Seine, the last major summer festival in France, scheduled for late August-early September in the Paris region, has been postponed to 2021 due to the constraints linked to the coronavirus pandemic, organizers said on Tuesday.

This meeting, scheduled over three days (August 29/30 and September 1), had brought together nearly 100,000 people last year at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud. The headliner-event announced for 2020 was Rage Against The Machine, an iconic American group of rap-metal fusion.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe explained on April 28 that no gathering of more than 5,000 people could take place before September. "The health measures taken in the context of the current crisis" do not "allow" the holding of Rock en Seine in its current format, expose the organizers in a press release. Ticket holders will be able to "be reimbursed" or keep them "while waiting for the announcement of the programming for the 2021 edition", they continue.

The people in charge of Rock en Seine are however reflecting on the possibility, around the dates of the festival this summer, of an "embodied project, in an original and singular form to convey a message of optimism and combat around the performing arts", details the president of the festival, Emmanuel Hoog, to AFP.

"Could it be an exceptional evening? It is still too early to say what form it could take, and if even this initiative could see the day. It is the sanitary conditions that will say it. We are organizers above all responsible and the health of all remains our priority, we will not take any risk ", develops Mr. Hoog.

As of mid-April, the main music festivals have given up their 2020 edition in turn. The Vieilles Charrues (scheduled from July 16 to 19, 270,000 spectators last year), the Francofolies (July 10-14, 150,000), the Eurockéennes (July 2-4, 128,000), the Main Square (July 3-5, 115,000), the Nuits de Fourvière (July 2-31, 190,000), Art Rock, Garorock, Europavox, Marsatac, Musilac, Jazz à Juan and Jazz à Vienne have thrown in the towel. Printemps de Bourges, Hellfest, Lollapalooza and Solidays had preceded them.

In the other arts, the Avignon festival, for the theater, was also postponed to 2021, while for the cinema, Cannes also said goodbye to its usual celebrations, reflecting on an alternative form.

© 2020 AFP