REPORT. The free party never ends: in Cher, these irreducible ravers continue to dance

The teknival, also set up on a military base, is coming to an end, even though some will stay until the last note of music. Despite being tired.

On the fifth day of the festival, Tuesday, May 5, there are now fewer than 3,000 ultimate participants at the free party in Cher, near Bourges, compared to 20,000 at the beginning of the event last Friday. Four people have been taken care of in absolute emergency, more than 3,500 fines have been issued. Some school bus lines have been interrupted on the route of the free party, and 75 middle school students were unable to attend class on Monday. While some participants are starting to feel the strain, most still seem to be in good shape and ready to continue.

Some ravers are feeling increasingly heavy and empty-eyed as they walk through the alleys, like Theo, who is packing up his things and getting ready to hit the road: “I’ve only slept about 15 hours since Thursday night… So let’s say I have 20% battery left. But I can sleep during the journey, so it’s okay.”

“For now, it’s okay. I think that when I get home tonight or tomorrow, we’ll take a good nap to catch up a little. But we’ll go back easy on the journey, not too fast, that will be important.”

A raver from Cornusse

source: franceinfo

“I don’t sleep much but I’m always in good shape. The secret is to eat and drink a lot of water,” explains another raver with tired eyes. “Tired eyes? I’ll have to take a little nap after that, it will be better.” Some of these participants have indeed consumed drugs, sometimes to endure the distance, but it is also possible to enjoy free parties without using drugs, assures Guillaume, a Parisian who wants to stay until the end.

“I don’t consume, so I don’t drink alcohol either. I eat, I eat every day, I have fun, I walk around, it’s like camping. We laugh, we see people dancing to the same music. We come from all over Europe, we make friends. So I feed on life, that’s what I consume. I’ve been doing free parties for 20 years, I’m 37,” he says.

Defending a way of life is also what keeps Sarah, a 33-year-old woman from Tours, going: “As soon as I start to get tired, we’ll go to bed and come back full of energy. And before, it wasn’t the same, before we didn’t sleep. Now, I sleep at 2 or 3 in the morning, I go to sleep, we eat.”