Drink Pastis by the metre and party till dawn! The genderfluid French superclub in the heart of cowboy country
<p>Stars, cowboys, village kids and drag queens – they all flock to La Churascaia, the bullring-like nightspot in the Camargue marshes. As it notches up 60 years of freewheeling hedonism, we celebrate an unstoppable rollercoaster</p><p>Hidden in a copse of pine trees, in the southern French region of Camargue near Arles, sits the legendary nightclub <a href="https://www.lachurascaia.fr/">La Churascaia</a>. For 60 years, nothing has stopped this nightlife institution partying till dawn – not even a power cut. When a storm knocked out the electricity one night in the mid-1970s, the French news presenter Yves Mourousi simply drove his car into the venue, and the dancing continued to the sound of its stereo.</p><p>La Chu, as it’s known, opened in June 1965, making it one of the longest surviving discotheques in the world – behind Los Angeles’s Whisky-a-Go-Go, Paris’s Chez Castel and Rome’s Piper Club. It’ll be celebrating this feat of nightclub stamina on 29 June with a huge shindig at this most unlikely of venues smack-bang in the middle of the Camargue marshes. With 4,000 guests expected, the event will unite the three or four generations who’ve passed through its hallowed doors.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/27/churascaia-genderfluid-superclub-french-cowboy-camargue-pastis-bullring">Continue reading...</a>