North of Toulouse: controversy surrounding the organization of a gathering of tuning enthusiasts
The organizer of a rally around tuning who wanted to make the practice of urban racing legal saw the land he had spotted in Fenouillet in the north of Toulouse would avoid him. Indeed, the owner finally refused to rent the premises to him. Since then the situation has stalled.
Near the Fenouillet shopping center, near Toulouse, sits a huge disused building covered in graffiti. A padlocked chain closed the rust-strewn white gate blocking the entrance to this almost abandoned-looking space. It is on this paved ground adjoining the railway tracks, in the middle of an industrial zone, that the organizers of an event around tuning have set their sights. “I contacted the owner of the premises, he gave me his oral agreement for us to organize our gathering”, assures Alexandre Chagneau, president of the Toulouse Car Meet association behind this event. On the program from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday: “a parking space where you open the hoods of the cars to admire the mechanics” and a “space dedicated to standing starts” underlines the organizer. That is to say a race start.
But now, a few days before the start of this rally scheduled for this weekend, the situation took another turn. “I contacted the owner again and he told me that he no longer wanted to rent to us, confides, disappointed and upset, the president of TCM. We had prepared everything by installing tires and tapes to secure the premises, everything is legal, planned and organized and yet the owner changed his mind. He told me he had been pressured”. What the person disputes. The latter evokes a first contact ten days ago from this organizer. “I told him that there was asbestos on my land, that it was dangerous and that I didn’t want to take any risks if an accident ever happened,” he slips. Proposals confirmed by the son of the owner. “I think they wanted to understand what they wanted but it’s not because we don’t say no categorically that it means yes”, he blurts out while evoking several recent occupations prohibited on this same ground by the Traveler community.
“We are being put in the way”
For Alexandre Chagneau it is incomprehension and anger. According to him, it is quite simply the practice of “runs” which is not required by the authorities despite his desire to make it prohibited and legal. “Wild runs cause accidents, endangerment of road users, noise pollution. We have revealed to make it legal and we are prevented from doing it. legal and we are put in the way “, he indicates. And to argue his point, the head of TCM refers to the 18-year-old young man who died during a gathering of car enthusiasts, in Somain, in the North.
With less than 24 hours from the start of the event, the situation is at a standstill. Hundreds of members and enthusiasts of the practice have shared a video on social networks to express their disgust. “The town hall, the gendarmerie and the municipal police put pressure”, he incriminates in this montage. Again, the facts are disputed. On the side of the town hall of Fenouillet, no one has heard of this event and this association and even less of any pressure. On the other hand, the community of gendarmerie brigades in charge of this area has taken note of the file and is closely monitoring its development. “We would do everything to avoid illegal activity and excesses,” says a source from the gendarmerie. And the name of this organizer is preferentially known to the police. Indeed, he was a voluntary deputy gendarme in Haute-Garonne but suspended from his duties for having organized illegal races in the Toulouse suburbs…