Rap star Gims has apologized for a January 1 video in which he called on Muslims not to celebrate the New Year. “This video, I totally regret it (…) I did not want to hurt people. Faith is intimate, ”he said in an interview with Journal du Dimanche.
“Please with the ‘Happy New Year’, ‘New Year’, let me, you know I never replied to that, and you keep sending me some until January, February” , he launched to his subscribers. “In addition, the Muslims, we have the same conviction, stop with that. It’s Muslims who send me this, most of the time. Brothers, don’t do this. The video had been widely commented on social networks.
“I myself cannot vote! »
The artist was also questioned by our colleagues about his closeness to candidate LR in the presidential election – in June, he said he was “proud” to collaborate with her: “I do not support Valérie Pécresse (.. .) I support his approach, as president of the Île-de-France Region, for young talents (…) People think that I am calling for a vote, when I do not have French nationality. I can’t vote myself! “, he launched.
Indeed, French nationality was refused to him. But this Congolese who has lived in France almost all his life intends to ask for it again: “I will apply for nationality again. I am a very patient person, not the type to give up,” he told the weekly.
The singer-songwriter, born Gandhi Djuna in Kinshasa in 1986, arrived in France at the age of two, from parents who were fleeing President Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire at the time. Not being French, “is one of my biggest regrets. All my memories are in France (…) When I travel to Qatar, to the United States… I present myself as a French artist. Not Congolese,” he explains.
A refusal linked to a crime?
” I miss him the official paper. But that doesn’t just depend on me. Apparently the refusal is linked to an offense I allegedly committed when I was a minor. But my locker is blank, ”explains the rapper.
The daily Le Parisien, which publishes an investigation on Gims, however presents another version. His first application for naturalization was filed in 2013, but “the procedure is bogged down”. According to “a former Minister of the Interior” interviewed by the newspaper, the refusal finally suffered in 2017 is due to “non-payment of fines for traffic offenses and his inability to establish in France the center of his material interests” , the singer residing a good part of the year in Marrakech (Morocco).
Gims would have relaunched his request in 2018, raising the subject with the wife of President Brigitte Macron, without more success, according to Le Parisien.