Public Disturbance

The French word apéritif, or apéro for short, has always seemed an elegant way of talking about a civilized drink before dinner. But since last August, young people in France have put a whole new spin on it by staging what they call apéros géants. These enormous binges bring together thousands of kids at a time in one city center after another, all over the country, all summoned together on Facebook. While the French are known to take the party to the street on special occasions, such as the upcoming Fête de la musique, these apéros géants crop up randomly, organized and publicized only by a Facebook event page. Rather than a celebration with a cause, it seems they are just an excuse to party.

But the death of a 21-year-old reveler who fell off a bridge while leaving a 9,000-strong apéro in Nantes on Thursday may have a sobering effect. At least, that’s what increasingly concerned police and municipal authorities are hoping—especially as the possibility looms of the most massive binge yet around the Eiffel Tower set for May 23.

The apéros géants are radically different from the usual patterns of French alcohol consumption, and underlying some of the misgivings about them by the older generation is the feeling that they’re basically un-French—imported somehow by the globalized trend-machines of the Internet. Social drinking is more than socially acceptable in France, after all. It’s a cherished facet of what’s called the “art of living.”

But these apéros are about drinking with a vengeance, says sociologist Monique Dagnaud, author of a recent book on the French generational divide and an article on the apéros for the French Web site Slate.fr. “The older generation was much different. We would get together to talk, to dance, and yes to drink some wine,” says Dagnaud. “But young people don’t drink wine, instead they’re drinking whisky, vodka, tequila, and becoming incoherent.” (The young man who died in Nantes had consumed as many as 15 glasses of scotch.) As Dagnaud sees it, there is a kind of desperate escapism involved which may be tied to all the economic uncertainties of the future. “Young people want to come out with their friends, drink a lot of liquor very quickly and forget the world.”

The Facebook factor has also added the element of anonymity for the organizers, who may take no responsibility for keeping order, much less cleaning up. One who summoned thousands of revelers to the streets of Montpellier this week called himself “Alain Cognito.”

The attraction of sheer hedonism, meanwhile, is sweetened by competition. The events have been getting bigger and bigger as high school and college kids want to be able to say that their town had the biggest party in France. “We’re here to beat the record for the biggest apéro!” a group of teenagers explained to French newspaper Le Parisien in Nantes.

The question at the moment is how authorities will meet the challenge. In Paris, the police have started their own Facebook site and warned that anyone trying to organize an apéro on the Champ de Mars around the Eiffel Tower may face prosecution, six months in jail, and thousands of euros in fines. The original organizer has taken down his page on Facebook—but others have simply started a new one. Even if Sunday’s event doesn’t materialize, it looks like a long, drunk summer is in store.