French arts season in chaos as performers strike

On Gérard Belfiore's T-shirt were written the words: "I am a magician. I am going to vanish." M. Belfiore - a magician in Beziers, on France's south coast - was one of 3,000 workers in the performing and visual arts (from clowns to cameramen) who marched through Avignon yesterday.

They were supporting a one-day strike by performers and technicians in the Avignon drama and dance festival, one of the most prestigious festivals of its kind in the world.

If the arts workers decide to extend their strike indefinitely - as seems likely - the three-week-long Avignon festival may vanish, and not just for this year. Tens of thousands of festival-goers from across Europe had cancelled their tickets and hotel reservations even before the abandonment of yesterday's opening day.

The streets, squares, restaurants and shops of this beautiful papal city beside the Rhone - usually bustling at festival time - were sadly empty.

"Whatever happens next, this is already catastrophe," said Jacqueline Fortier, a local woman, surveying the empty main ticket office in a beautiful courtyard shaded by immense trees. "If this year's festival makes a big loss, there will be no Avignon theatre festival next year - or ever again."

In British terms, this would be akin to the death of Edinburgh or Glyndebourne.

France's entire summer season of festivals - more than 700 events - faces collapse unless a solution is found to the week-old, nationwide dispute over special unemployment rights for about 75,000 freelance workers in the performing arts, cinema and television. Several small festivals have already been cancelled. A big opera festival in Aix and the "Francofolies", a celebration of traditional French popular song in La Rochelle, are struggling to open and may not survive the week.

A colourful, noisy march by arts workers yesterday promised to replace the 40 shows in the Avignon festival, and the almost 600 shows in the "fringe", with an alternative "festival of resistance".

The dispute is difficult for outsiders to comprehend. It is driven partly by the same political agenda as the recent transport and education strikes in France. Some of the banners on yesterday's march claimed the protest as part of a counter-revolution against efforts by the centre-right government to reform the welfare state.

Marchers said they were fighting to preserve the performing arts in France from "globalisation", ultra-liberalism and a "drift towards a McDonald's culture". But there are also less abstract issues and livelihoods at stake.

Since 1969, freelance arts workers in France have enjoyed a privileged position in the supposedly self-financing system that pays unemployment benefit.

Under the current rules, they can dip in and out of the dole, as long as they can prove they have worked 507 hours in the arts in the past 12 months. In other words, they can do a week of shows, claim a week of benefit and then work again.

M. Belfiore, the magician who fears that he, or his livelihood, may vanish for ever, said: "It shouldn't really be seen as unemployment pay. It is a way of paying us when we are rehearsing or training, and when seasonal demand is low."

The system applied originally only to the performing arts. It helped struggling actors, extras, directors and choreographers, but also freelance lighting and sound workers and even itinerant puppeteers and children's party entertainers. Over recent years, the system has been extended to include technicians in the television and film industry, with disastrous results.

The number of freelance arts workers has doubled in the past 10 years. Large French TV and film companies have been abusing the system to reduce their costs. Technicians have been placed on short-term contracts and made to claim unemployment pay for part of the time.

They are allegedly sometimes bullied into working unpaid while claiming benefit. There has also been an explosion of fake freelances and other forms of cheating.

The result is a massive "deficit" - now more than €800m (£550m) a year - between what the freelances and their employers pay into the system and what they take out. This deficit is paid by other workers and employers, who have insisted on reform.

Unions and the employers' federation, Medef, which run the benefit system between them, agreed changes 10 days ago that would force the freelances to complete their 507 hours of work in 10 months instead of 12. The more militant unions refused the deal. Many arts workers say that the changes would put them out of business and would, in any case, not tackle the abuses.

Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the Culture Minister, has suspended the reform until next year and has convened more negotiations, which were continuing last night.

SUMMER FESTIVALS UNDER THREAT

Many of France's hundreds of arts festivals have been called off and others risk collapse.

CANCELLED:

* Nantes: Several drama performances at the end of June and a musical and new technologies festival, Scopitone.

* Pau: Due to open last week and continue until 11 July.

* Rennes: Tombées de la nuit (9-13 July ).

* Albi: Scènes estivales, due to last until 1 July.

* Montpellier: Dance festival.

* Marseille: Contemporary art festival.

* Montluçon: performances of Les Trois Soeurs cancelled until 10 July.

* Lyon: Art festival Nuits de Fourvière called off three of four performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, left.

* Paris: Opening week of La Villette open-air film festival; performance of Ostrovsky's The Forest called off on Monday at France's national theatre, La Comédie-Française; Paris Opera hit by strikes and performance of Les noces de Figaro cancelled on Friday.

AT RISK:

* Aix-en-Provence, left: Opera festival, due to start on 4 July, was postponed, opened partly on Monday. Performance of Traviata cancelled.

* Performance of La dame de Pique at the Lyon Opera due to be cancelled today.

* La Rochelle music festival, Francopholies, due to open on 16 July, at risk.

* Mirande country music festival (14 July), Tempo Latino (24 July) and Jazz in Marcia (1 August) at risk.

* Vienne jazz festival managed to open, under police protection.

* Carhaix rock festival Les Vielles Charues, due to start on 18 July, at risk.

* Pop star Johnny Hallyday may call off gigs in Parc des Princes, Paris, this week.

Camille Chambon