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Muslim rapper at Bataclan ‘sacrilege’ says French right

By AFP
June 12, 2018

PARIS: Rightwing French leaders have condemned as “sacrilege” a decision to allow a provocative Muslim rapper to play the Bataclan concert hall in Paris where jihadists massacred 90 people three years ago. Rapper Medine — who caused an outcry when he attacked hardline secularists in a controversial 2015 song, “Don´t Laik”, a week before the Charlie Hebdo killings — is to play the Bataclan for two nights in October. French opposition leader Laurent Wauquiez said he was shocked that “someone who sings about ´crucifying secularists´ and calls himself ´Islamo-scum´” would appear at the venue “less than three years after Islamist barbarism cost the lives of 90 of our compatriots. “It is sacrilege and dishonours France,” the leader of the Republicans party tweeted. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said that “no French person can accept that this guy spew out his rubbish at the Bataclan.” “We have had enough of complacency and worse, of this incitement to Islamist fundamentalism,” she added in a tweet. An online petition organised by her National Rally party — formerly the National Front — calling for the concerts to be banned had more than 16,000 signatures by Monday morning.