Muslim Rapper’s Plans to Play at the Bataclan in Paris Prompt Furor

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/arts/music/medine-bataclan-petition.html

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In March, the French rapper Médine released “Bataclan,” a song about how, ever since he was a boy, he had dreamed of playing the Paris music venue, where 89 people died in a deadly terrorist attack in 2015.

When he announced a show there in October, it quickly sold out. A second date was added.

On Saturday, however, a member of the far-right National Rally party — previously called the National Front — launched a petition calling for the concerts to be canceled. The petition says it would be “the height of indecency” for Médine to perform at the Bataclan, adding that the Muslim rapper was known for “violent lyrics in the name of Islam.”

The petition, which had over 15,000 signatures on Monday morning, cites Médine’s 2015 song “Don’t Laïk,” which includes the line “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.” The petition also mentions photographs of Médine wearing a T-shirt that features the word “Jihad,” the name of an album he released in 2005. While the lyrics of the song itself are not threatening, the petition acknowledges, wearing a T-shirt with that word is “shocking and aggressive.”

Médine has repeatedly criticized Islamic fundamentalism and objected to the divisions that both Islamists and the far-right have stirred in France.

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Eric Bellamy, the concert’s promoter, told the French newspaper Le Monde that the concerts would go ahead. He added that Médine had explained his lyrics many times and that the message of “Don’t Laïk” was not Islamist. “There is no ambiguity in what he says,” Mr. Bellamy added.

Médine declined to comment on the latest furor, but in 2016, he told The New York Times that “Don’t Laïk” was about French secularism — its title is a mash-up of English “don’t like” and the French word for secularism, “laïcité,” he said.

Over the weekend, the petition received support from prominent supporters of the far right. Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s leader, tweeted that “no French person can accept this guy” playing at “the very place of the carnage.”

Supporters of the petition tweeted using the hashtag #PasDeMédineAuBataclan (“No Médine at the Bataclan”).

The campaign has also found sympathetic voices outside the far right. Lawmakers from the Republicans, a right-of-center party with the second-highest number of seats in the National Assembly, also condemned the concerts. And Caroline Wassermann, a lawyer for nine victims of the Bataclan attack, said on Monday that she would write to the Paris police and to the French culture minister to ask for the shows to be canceled.

“We cannot be silent about this,” Ms. Wassermann said in a telephone interview. “This guy, Médine, can sing every song he wants elsewhere, but in the Bataclan — it’s a sanctuary — it’s not possible because of the subjects he sings about.”

When asked about Médine’s history of criticizing Islamist terrorism, Ms. Wasserman said that did not matter, because he had criticized the French way of life.

In 2015, Médine told Les Inrockuptibles, a French music magazine, that the French were reluctant to hear criticism of the country’s official policy of secularism from a Muslim. “I paid the price,” he said, referring to the criticism of “Don’t Laïk.”

A co-founder of the French rap website Booska-P, who goes by the name Fif, thanked Ms. Le Pen for the attention she was bringing to Médine. He predicted that the rapper would sell out a third night at the Bataclan as a result.