Espace Julien reopens "for all the intermittents who die"

Espace Julien is a flagship concert hall in downtown Marseille.

Here during a Vianney concert -

• Espace Julien reopened this weekend in Marseille, with 300 seats, in the midst of a health crisis

• Its president, Eric Di Meco, defends this decision, in the name of support for the cultural world.

  He hopes other venues will follow.

The news appears like an oxygen bubble in a suffocated cultural world.

Last weekend, despite the extremely tense health context in Marseille, classified as a maximum alert zone given the spread of Covid-19, Espace Julien, one of the main theaters in downtown Marseille, reopened, with a series of concerts and performances.

Its recently elected president, former footballer Eric Di Meco, reconsiders this unusual decision.

Why did you decide to reopen Espace Julien?

We are fortunate to have a large configuration equipment with seats.

We will apply the same protocol as in cinemas for example, with hydroalcoholic gel and very precise sanitary measures.

With a capacity of 900 standing places, we have gone to 300 seats.

We had great doubts about having the authorization to open, at one point, we were even told that we could not reopen until 2021!

It was very complicated, there are a few meetings where we have really taken the lead!

We considered everything, concert recordings on video… to finally arrive at this solution and be able to open with this reduced gauge.

The seated concerts are not really in the habits of the Espace Julien ...

Of course, it's drastic to get into the nails but there is a real demand for culture.

At the moment, either we try to open and we start again, even in slow motion, or we close and we die.

And how many intermittents with all this will end up in the street?

Everyone in the culture is in great difficulty, and a little neglected.

We decided to reopen the Espace Julien for all these intermittents who are dying, the entire local scene which no longer lives.

Espace Julien has always put the spotlight on local artists, many artists from Marseille have made their first scene at Café Julien.

We felt obligated for them to try to restart slowly.

Me, I have lots of musician friends who haven't played for six months and who have nothing to eat!

Is it for them that you accepted the presidency of Espace Julien, shortly before confinement?

When I was deputy mayor [of Jean-Claude Gaudin between 2001 and 2007], I had been in contact with the Espace Julien teams and when the previous president left, they came to get me.

It is a voluntary activity in an association as there may be others in Marseille.

It is certain that I live a rather unique mandate!

But above all, I hope that through what we do, we will be able to show other rooms that hesitate to open that it is possible to do so!

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