"It's magic": in the North, the last Macumba in France offers a final dance before its closure

"A big family" , "a jewel" , "my whole life" . Sixty years of history ended on the night of Sunday to Monday with the closing of the last Macumba in France , near Lille, celebrated one last time by hundreds of lovers of this nightclub. The Macumba of Englos (North), "is my whole life, dancing, friends" , and its closing is "heartbreaking" , sighs Dany Cornu, a sparkling 67-year-old blonde dressed in a dazzling blue faceted dress.

Entering at the opening at 3:00 p.m., this loyal among the loyal, 25 years of seniority on the dance floor, does not see herself leaving before 3:00 a.m. "If I don't fall before!" she smiles, happy to see this place that she cherishes come alive one last time. She was only a child when the first Macumba was created, in 1966 in Montpellier, and was not yet an adult when the one in Englos, on the outskirts of Lille, opened in 1975. This establishment closed to allow the octogenarian founder, Henri Souque, to retire. "It's time to make way for others (...) 84 years old, that's an excuse, right?" he says, dressed all in black, pacing the room that will be sold to promoters.

There were up to 23 Macumba in France, but also in Spain and even a sub-franchise in Cuba. "Oh Macumba, Macumba, she dances every night ," sang Jean-Pierre Mader in 1985 in a hit that popularized the name of this chain of nightclubs. For this last dance, hundreds of diehards try to prove him right on an eclectic playlist, from Claude François to Dua Lipa , including Aretha Franklin .

Jean-Pierre Mader - Macumba (1985)

The room seems full, close to its maximum capacity of 1400 people. As the hour goes by, the atmosphere rises, the humidity too. On the dance floor, shirts stick to bodies, the population is visibly getting younger. The "seniors", who have enjoyed a dedicated atmosphere from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., are moving back. Lying on a sofa, their eyes in the distance, two women in their sixties are resting their feet, placed on plastic chairs.

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A grandpa is putting up a fight. In his impeccably ironed purple shirt, Joseph Pietraskiewiecz, 78, sways like a young man. "Hey, that should be reimbursed by social security!" jokes the retiree, who claims to owe his "terrible endurance" to his 20 years at Macumba. Just a few meters away, three generations of women in black dresses climb onto a high table and start dancing to Flowers by Miley Cyrus . Demonstrating great discipline, the hundreds of partygoers gathered on the dance floor almost sing Voyages, voyages in unison when the DJ cuts off the Desireless track just before these words.

The closure of Macumba is a symbol of the end of an era, that of the vast nightclubs that had their heyday in the 1980s - France then had 4,000 nightclubs according to Sacem, compared to around 1,500 today. Coming for the first time in November, Céline, 30, discovered a "great" , "magical" place: "It's family, Macumba. It's a big family," she says, fearing, like her best friend Axelle, at her side, to shed a few tears.

" Family, friends, we don't know each other, everyone gets together, we talk, we love each other, we dance"

Manu, a regular at Macumba

Manu, 52, in a fitted white shirt unbuttoned at the top and a gold chain around his neck, goes even further. This last evening, "it's like a wedding. The family, the friends, we don't know each other, everyone gets together, we chat, we love each other, we dance." He casts a nostalgic glance towards the stage, on which the two resident DJs, for their last evening at the Macumba decks, briefly embrace. "We live this evening until the end," he says, before stopping at the edge of the dance floor, on which the blonde Dany is still dancing.