Murmurs of the city in Moulins: Humanity witnessed the spectacle of the mini-Puy du Fou and it was even worse than expected

Moulins (Allier), special correspondent.

A moment before, there were still the partners' logos in disarray: Region, Department, Agglo, City and – as everyone knows since it caused a scandal – Pierre-Edouard Stérin 's Common Good Fund. Then, without transition, there were five immense Nazi flags. Yes, yes: Nazis. Red, bearing swastikas. Friday evening, July 11, from the roof to the ground floor, these gigantic banners invaded the facade of the National Center for Costume and the Stage (CNCS), the large public museum in Moulins (Allier).

The scene does not take place in a fleeting or innocuous transition from Murmures de la cité, this mini-Puy du Fou which is being held in Auvergne for three nights in a row until Sunday, July 13; it is downright the opening of a show that is much more political than cultural, fundamentally revisionist and downright anti-republican. The sequence itself lasts nearly five minutes... An accident? Certainly not, when you take the trouble to scrutinize the small team at the helm, emanating from the traditionalist identity group Sophia Polis, of which the fascist writer and collaborator Robert Brasillach remains a cardinal reference .

Well beyond the subliminal, this projection on a French public building looks furiously like a middle finger, even a fulfilled fantasy. Blond heads with gray temples, the audience will be caught cold, but no problem, apparently: now that things are finally moving, with sound and light, we're not going to complain that the show doesn't respect Godard's sarcastic instruction: "Objectivity is five minutes for the Jews and five minutes for Hitler." The former being completely erased, like so many others, in this affair which will not even refer to the national novel of the Third Republic but rather to a nationalist romance...

Let's rewind: for a good hour, around 600 spectators have been bored stiff, waiting for the evening to start. These two lovers have, for a long time, finished their kebabs, laughing at having heard the security service, taken aback by their outrage. "Well, yes, it's not pâté-croûte, but we got through..." But, now, in the bronze category (15 euros per seat) as well as in the silver category (25 euros), on chairs on either side of the square, and even in the front row, in gold (40 euros), on a few stands in the center, everywhere, patience is reaching its limits. After having exhausted all their mockery against "the shitty ecologists who had to find another three-and-a-half-legged owl to annoy us " , against "Whatever (Emmanuel Macron, editor's note) who is going to make more bogus announcements on July 14th", against the mayor of the village to whom we should report when we fill our swimming pool, two retired couples grumble in chorus: "Couldn't they put on a bit of music for us?"

Fortunately, a priest in a sackcloth robe and Roman collar provides a distraction as he rushes backstage, escorted by a security guard. "Is he an extra, or the real thing?" a woman asks, speaking to everyone. "Because today, you have to be careful; we're in a rather unusual environment with the people who put on this show," she admits, in hushed tones.

No one is paying attention to the Roman legionaries or the Napoleonic hierarchs pacing the esplanade waiting for nightfall. A dignitary in a Hitlerian frock coat, muttering German, has just received a "Guten Tag." Not many people are listening to the nun in a cornette who, as she whispers, leaning against a barrier, only arrived "last Monday"...