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FIGHT-CLUBS A PARALLEL CHAMPIONSHIP WHICH NOBODY SPEAKS ABOUT.
It is a worldwide phenomenon. A few hours before the football stadiums ring out with the songs of the football Ultras, the Independents are already roaming the streets of the town spoiling for a fight. During encounters lasting only a few minutes, groups of between 30 and 200 people charge each other in an eruption of open-air urban warfare. The Independents are extreme football fans, proud of their team and their town, the emblem of which they carry as a banner, a replacement identity. The rare newspaper articles devoted to them reduce the phenomenon to acts of violence by degenerate supporters, high on alcohol and drugs. Yet, an in-depth look at this world of “real football” reveals a mosaic of much more subversive profiles: young people, old people, working-class poor, middle classes, right-wing and left-wing extremists, some girls and even a few tax-paying fathers. They are all irresistibly drawn by the tension of the Saturday encounters where anything can happen, even the worst, and they all continue to ask for more.
PHOTOS: ©FRANCIS DEMANGE / GAMMA / EYEDEA TEXTE: © SEBASTIEN DI SILVESTRO/GAMMA/EYEDEA 13 rue d’Enghien – 75010 Paris France – Tel : 01 44 79 36 00 / Fax 01 44 79 36 77 SA au capital de 3 716 412 € - RCS Paris B 379 412 000. NAF 924Z