- The Techno Parade was crazy, fun, and full of good humor!
- The Techno Parade was hijacked by hooded thugs causing trouble! (This narrative clearly embedded with racist undertones)
The AFP (Agence France-Presse) described the event:
"Techno Parade inaugurated its new version on Saturday in the streets of Paris, on the occasion of its 12th edition, during which the audience danced to the sound of techno music in a relaxed festive and colorful." (Please excuse the awkwardness of this Google translation.)
Here's video coverage of the parade from another newspaper Le Parisien:
"Groups of thugs were attacking passersby, yelling at each office to intimidate them. But hardly these aggressive packs were beginning to break up the police trap was closing in on them. In small groups, the thugs were promptly driven in buses to join the local police headquarters…"
Moreover, the article cites blog videos that "show real hooded hordes of people, including many teenagers of African origin, intimidating passers-by…"
The article most likely refers to this video, produced by Projet Apache, that portrays "Violence at the Techno Parade" at the hands of black youth.
Thankfully online magazines Musique Mag and Agora Vox (a citizen journalism driven site) are calling Le Figaro out on its racist coverage of the parade. However, the online poll attached to the latter article indicates that 70% of readers "agree" with the video depicting the violence. I'm not sure if that means they agree that violence was a huge problem or that they agree that the coverage is biased.
Unfortunately I wasn't at the parade to witness everything with my own eyes, but judging from these pictures and knowing how media tends to sensationalize what goes on at large youth gatherings, I'm going to say that for the most part, despite a few probelmatic incidents, overall this event was probably good times across a diversity of people. It set out to bring people together in a fun, festive way, and in that regard it seems to have succeeded.