The rides and bumper cars should have started running late last week. In the end, they will not even be mounted this year. The Toulouse funfair lovers will have to give up on that of Saint-Michel. Essential for five decades, this meeting was definitively canceled Monday Wednesday for lack of agreement with the town hall, announced fairgrounds on social networks.
For several weeks, a conflict opposes the municipality and the professionals of the festival on its place of establishment. After having been for nearly 40 years in the city center, they were installed in the parking lot of the Zénith. But the development of the district and the complaints of local residents have prompted the town hall to seek a new base for the 120 attractions that will be home to no less than 90 families.
And next year?
After having studied nearly 25 places, in mid-September, the town hall proposed a site on the island of Ramier as a last resort. Without refusing it, the fairgrounds replied to the community that this solution seemed to them “complicated to implement given the work launched on the island”. A latent conflict, then opened in recent days, has emerged. The showmen carried out snail operations and a meeting took place on Saturday between the representatives of the showmen, the mayor and the State services. Without success.
“Thank you Jean-Luc Moudenc for removing this party in the city center which until then made everyone happy”, posted the fairgrounds on their Facebook page, indicating that it is “prohibited to laugh and have fun in the Pink City”.
It remains to be seen whether a solution will be found for next year or whether the carnival will no longer have any place in Toulouse.