During a party in Mirepeix, very violent clashes took place, they followed a fight a week earlier. Two young men are in custody. The mayors of the municipalities concerned are asking for a judicial response to this violence. The public prosecutor of Pau announces that the controls will be strengthened on a case by case basis. Stéphane Virto, mayor of Mirepeix, and Jean-Christophe Muller, public prosecutor in Pau, speak on the subject.
A police van drives in the night, siren and flashing lights on, towards the Alforville party hall: a fight was reported. The event organizer stopped the music and admitted to seeing nothing. The scuffle lasted only a few minutes. The police commissioner explains that this is unfortunately common. Some come to the balls to dance and others to let off steam by "exchanging a few fists, and all the excuses are good".
A man explains in voice of how fights in balls or dancing begin and take place. "It always starts with two three slaps... They attack the material. They need a lot of noise. There must be broken glasses". Scenes of fights between young men, filmed at night, illustrate his point.
Racist murder or assault after a ball? After being chased by a gang of teenagers after a ball, 26-year-old Abderrahman Rabah was rushed from a cliff in Ault. The victim and his two brothers were taken to task by young people in a state of intoxication at the exit of the annual ball of municipal employees: racist insults, beatings and injuries. Two people were indicted.
For Claude MICHEL, fights in balls have always existed, whether in the 1930s or the 1950s. However, the grounds for violence may have changed. During his youth, he said that the young people most often picked each other for "a girl". He believes that violence has become a means of expression for young people: "to fight against society, a society they did not want".
The upsurge of violence in village festivals pushed organizers and holiday committees adopted simple rules of prevention. Two young people testify and a disc jockey makes an alarming observation: he says he saw people running after him with choppers, serps, knives. Near Bagnere de Bigorre, a young man died, stabbed at the end of a ball. In the Hautes-Pyrénées, several festival committees have decided to organize themselves around the association "Heste a Nouste" and decree the closure of the festival places at 3 am, as the regulation wants. Stéphane Barthe, vice-president of the association explains it.
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