Laura Laplaud with AFP / Photo credit: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
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9:03 a.m., August 18, 2023
On the one hand, provocations and accusations of anti-Semitism or homophobia. On the other, the commitment against racism or police violence. The rapper Médine, invited to the summer universities of ecologists and rebellious people next week, is emerging as a figure of left-wing activism. But his invitation divides the political class.
The rapper claims “the right to make mistakes”
Placed in the light by these invitations to debate in political forums, the rapper from Le Havre claimed in May “the right to make mistakes” and “contradiction” and recognized “wanderings”, during a public evening organized by Mediapart. In question, in particular, his “quenelles”, anti-Semitic gesture of the polemicist Dieudonné, carried out in the past. “I regretted it, because waste pickers gave it another meaning,” pleaded the 40-year-old artist with an athletic build and a well-trimmed beard.
More recently, he described the Franco-Gambian essayist Rachel Khan, Jewish and granddaughter of a deportee, as “resKHANpée”. After strong outrage in the ranks of the majority, the rapper apologized and assured that the dubious pun was not directed “to his family or to the victims of the tragedy of the Holocaust”. “I very much regret that no left-wing party has taken up this absolutely awful anti-Semitic pun,” thundered Mathieu Lefèvre, Renaissance deputy from Val-de-Marne, guest of Europe 1 Morning on Friday.
“We are dealing with a left that is more and more communitarian”
“This slippage follows other slippages which are just as shameful in terms of homophobia, Islamist pamphlets. I remind you that this rapper spoke of crucifying the secularists, of sending fatwas. to compromise in this type of recovery”, he launched before continuing. “I wonder where the secular left has gone? Where has the secular left of the 2000s gone? Where has Jean-Pierre Chevènement’s left gone? We are dealing today with a left that is increasingly communitarian and that is to be greatly deplored.”
The Minister of Industry cancels his visit
The Minister of Industry Roland Lescure announced that he was giving up going to the summer days of Europe Écologie-Les Verts because of the presence of the rapper. A decision supported by the deputy. “We don’t debate anti-Semitism, we fight it,” he said. “To debate would have been to compromise and Roland Lescure was right not to go to debate. I have no desire for our Republican family to go and debate with this type of character”, he decided.
“There is left and extreme left anti-Semitism”
According to Mathieu Lefèvre, “there is nothing more republican in La France insoumise” today. “There is a left and far left anti-Semitism that must be fought in our country. And if I obviously respect the choice of voters, I will do everything to fight the far left and particularly La France insoumise in this drift” , he assured.