In the La Duchère neighborhood of Lyon, a trio of queer artists had to interrupt their street performance, programmed by the municipality, after being targeted by homophobic insults and volleys of fireworks mortars.
They had come to dance. They had to flee under homophobic insults and mortar fire from fireworks. On Gisèle-Halimi Square, in Lyon’s La Duchère district, two dancers and a musician from the company “MF” were presenting on Saturday, August 1st, “Say Something,” a free and participatory street performance. Programmed as part of “Tout l’monde dehors,” a municipal festival that offers nearly 200 open-air performances each summer, the show quickly came to a halt. The artists first received homophobic insults, before being targeted by a volley of firework mortars. The troupe’s musician was injured.
“From our arrival, it felt like we were disturbing people, even when parking our cars and setting up our equipment,” testifies Francesco Colaleo to têtu·, the founder along with Maxime Freixas of the trio that blends dance, theatre, improvisation, and humor. Their performance began when a teenager arrived on a scooter and began circling the dancers. “He pretended to rush at us for the entire show. Then he tried to strike us in the face while shouting ‘PD’ and ‘tape’ (tapette).“
“A Rain of Mortars”
The artists decided then to interrupt the performance. “We were afraid for our safety,” summarizes Maxime. But as they began to pack up their gear, the situation deteriorated even more. “A rain of mortars fell on us. We had to run for our lives,” denounces Francesco. Fired from the surrounding buildings, the projectiles hit the troupe directly. The musician’s computer was destroyed by a shot, and his eardrum was damaged. “We didn’t understand what was happening,” continues Maxime, who adds “a certain responsibility of the municipality for placing us here, without police or security“.
Édouard Hoffmann, a centrist councillor on the Lyon city council, sees in this homophobic assault “the symptom of a neighborhood where the street’s law regularly overrides the Republic’s law”. Contacted by têtu·, Emmanuel Giraud, the socialist mayor of the district, acknowledges that La Duchère is “a sensitive neighborhood”, where the sight of two men dancing would particularly clash with religious beliefs. Be that as it may, he insists, “it is out of the question that the values of the Republic be excluded from the neighborhood. We will not adapt our cultural, sporting or heritage events to the regard of a religion or of a few fundamentalists who would dominate the district.” And the mayor hopes: “Surveillance cameras could help locate where the mortar shots were fired from and identify their authors.”
And Now?
On the side of the City of Lyon, authorities condemned “with the greatest firmness” the facts, which they describe as “extremely serious”. The Green mayor, Grégory Doucet, assures that the municipality “will remain uncompromising in the face of all forms of hatred” and will continue its commitment to a city that is “open, inclusive and respectful”. The mayor even responded directly to the artists on Instagram, under a video post in which the two dancers express their distress. “You will always be welcome in Lyon,” he wrote to them.
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Sophie Brennan