ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, DRUGS… AND NATIONALISM: IN THE HEART OF EASTERN EUROPE’S FESTIVALS | M6 | Enquête Exclusive

With summer come the festival tours and Eastern Europe is now the must-be-there destination for fans of these giant festivals where anything goes! Cheaper than Ibiza and with extravagant festivals, Croatia, Serbia and Hungary are the new El Dorado for party beasts. After 40 years under the Communist yoke, then several years of war during the 90s, Eastern Europe is opening up to tourism and partying. With a ferocious appetite! Founded only 2 years ago, the Sonus, in Croatia, on the island of Pag, aims to be a world event to rival the American spring-breaks. 10,000 super-charged young people and gigantic nightclubs open day and night. The techno festival attracts the top DJs of the world. In Hungary, they have the most fantastic festival in Europe: the Sziget, a new Woodstock. 460,000 music fans and 500 concerts packed into a single week. Lovers of gypsy music gather in Guca in Serbia, for the biggest brass band gathering in the world. But in the countries of the East there are no limits. The festivals are awash with alcohol and drugs. To attract the young, dealers offer new pills with innocent names, but which are powerful and dangerous. In Serbia, the trumpet festival conceals another, more disturbing, gathering: that of the ultra-nationalists, who flaunt their beliefs unreservedly, an exacerbated form of patriotism that can quickly get out of control. How and why are these East European festivals attracting more and more young French people?