The most listened to French-speaking singer in the world since “Djadja” in 2018 has been targeted by the far right and has been the subject of numerous racist attacks since the announcement at the end of February by the weekly magazine L’Express of her possible participation in the opening ceremony on July 26, during which she could interpret songs by Edith Piaf.
For their “flash mob”, the twenty or so activists present danced to the sounds of Franco-Malian hits as well as those of Edith Piaf, which were played at full volume in front of the closed doors of the party headquarters.
The President of the RN MPs, Marine Le Pen, had criticized last week the possibility that Aya Nakamura would sing at the opening of the Games, stating that Emmanuel Macron wants to “divide” and “humiliate” the French. She mentioned “her outfit”, “her vulgarity”, or the fact that “she does not sing in French.”
In response, SOS Racisme activists held up a sign: “There is no way Marine, here it’s Paris, it’s not Vichy” or posters saying “Madame Le Pen, France is not humiliated by black people, it is humiliated by racists.”
“We came to thumb our noses at Marine Le Pen” with this “anti-racist ball,” explained the president of SOS Racisme, Dominique Sopo. “We are about to welcome the whole world for the Olympics and there is controversy because our greatest French-speaking artist, some want to symbolically – and perhaps not just symbolically – send her back to Bamako,” he lamented.
