A French Fair as Workers’ Paradise, Feting Cuisine, Music and Communism
The New York Times
The Fête de l’Humanité, a blend of Burning Man, Woodstock and a political convention, attracts the masses with bands, lectures and food, but here K.F.C. is C.F.K.: Communist Fried Kitchen.
Christine Marlier was angry when President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election this summer. She’s even angrier now that he appointed a right-wing prime minister, despite the fact that a leftist bloc won the most seats in Parliament.
But Ms. Marlier left that anger behind at home in the far northeast of France when she boarded a bus for a four-hour ride to a nearly 100-year-old festival on the outskirts of Paris that celebrates left-wing politics in general, and French Communism in particular.
The Fête de l’Humanité — festival of humanity — is an unlikely mixture of Burning Man, Woodstock and a political convention.
“We are never angry here,” said Ms. Marlier, 51, in between doing 1 euro shots of alcohol with her husband, both their faces decorated by sparkles.
They were standing in the middle of a dirt lane, between large white booths set up by Communist Party associations from around the country, offering the food specialties of their regions — including raw oysters and steamed lobsters, giant pans of tartiflette, and axoa, a minced veal dish from the Basque region.
