The Bayonne Festival, traditionally organized at the end of July, will be brought forward next year from July 10 to 14, due to the mobilization of the police for the Paris Olympics, we learned Monday from the city hall.
“It was that or no celebrations,” summarizes Yves Ugalde, deputy in charge of the festivities. The Bayonne festivities, one of the biggest popular gatherings in Europe with up to a million revelers, usually take place on the last weekend of July.
The small Basque town needs reinforcements but “the Minister of the Interior had told us” that for three CRS companies detached by the State, i.e. 280 civil servants “could not be present if we kept the same dates”, said specified the chosen one.
“We did not want to run the risk of doing without these CRS,” he added. At the end of October, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had warned that cultural or sporting events would be “cancelled or postponed” in the summer of 2024 due to the Olympics.
Major events have since announced date changes, such as the Avignon Festival, which will start exceptionally at the end of June. The 2024 Bayonne Festival will overlap with other major festivities in the Basque Country: that of San Fermin, in Pamplona, which begins on July 7 and lasts nine days.
“We may lose a few people, but I’m not sure it’s a tragedy,” said Mr. Ugalde. In 1936 and 1967, the Bayonne Festival had already been brought forward to July 14, he specifies. Security, reinforced in Bayonne since the attack of July 14, 2016 in Nice to include more than 1,000 police, gendarmerie and private security agents, represents a third of the budget for the organization of the celebrations.
For 2024, the City expects tensions to recruit security guards and has therefore “already made contact with private companies” and increased the entrance price for the holidays from 10 to 12 euros.
