“Even if the curtain falls, the memories will remain”: French institution, the last Macumba in France will close

Is this the end of an era? The last Macumba in France, located in Englos (North), will close its doors at the end of February, La Voix du Nord reveals this Wednesday. “It is with emotion that we announce that the last Macumba in France will permanently close its doors on Sunday February 23, 2025,” announced the establishment on its Facebook page, not without arousing emotion and nostalgia in the comments.

The Macumba had become the symbol of the wild nights of the 1980s, recalls Le Figaro. The chain, created in Montpellier (Hérault) in 1966, had up to 23 establishments and was established well beyond our borders, in Switzerland, Madrid and even Havana. All these “discotheques” have the particularity of being located on the outskirts of large cities, like supermarkets which are set up near major roads.

A true institution in France

“Without you, the Macumba would never have been what it has become: a French institution, a refuge for lovers of dance and conviviality,” writes the Macumba d’Englos in its publication, posted on Facebook. And to continue, to his customers: “You wrote each chapter of this great adventure with us and we will never forget it. Even if the curtain falls, the memories we created together will remain in our hearts. »

Over the years, Macumba has become such an institution that its name has become part of French popular culture. In 1985, Jean-Pierre Mader even wrote a song to the glory of these establishments (“At Macumba, she dances every evening…” he sang in the chorus, and we still sing today).

The closure of this last Macumba in France generally illustrates the decline of nightclubs in the country. According to a Sacem study, published in 2014, the number of nightclubs in France had increased from nearly 4,000 in the 1980s to more than 2,200 thirty years later.