While the sulphurous rapper Médine is scheduled at the Athanor in Albi, on April 1, a far-right group is mobilizing to have him banned. A situation that amuses the artist.
Regularly accused of promoting Islamist terrorism in his texts, Medina is accustomed to controversy. His title “Don’t Laïk” and his “Let’s crucify the secularists as in Golgotha” (2015) make him the privileged target of the far right and identitarians, but also of some of the Republicans and the Renaissance deputy Aurore Bergé . In 2018, it was in particular on the basis of this extract that several elected officials had requested the cancellation of two of his concerts at the Bataclan.
But since then, the artist from Le Havre, who publicly condemned the terrorist attacks and denounced an erroneous interpretation of his texts, was no longer really talked about, without however stopping being taken to task by certain politicians. The time for controversy seemed to have passed, as the rapper filled rooms all over France.
Medina in concert in Albi
It is therefore without ulterior motives that the organizer of the event, Pollux Asso, had programmed the rapper on Saturday April 1, for a concert at the Athanor in Albi. A coming that strongly reacted to the local far right. The small group, Patria Albigès, thus launched a petition, Friday, March 8, to have its visit canceled. In it, the activists evoke “a real scandal, in a country which suffers every day a little more from the desires of conquest of Islamism” and evokes a “spreader of hatred”.
Accompanied by a video presentation of an activist called “Lorenzo”, the petition which has toured a lot in identity circles has already collected a little over a thousand signatures from all over the country. She purely and simply asks the public authorities to cancel the concert.
A controversy that surprised the organizers of the event, Pollux Asso, who did not wish to comment on it but rather recalled their commitment for more than 20 years. “Throughout the year, Pollux Asso participates in the promotion and dissemination of current music in the North of the Department of Tarn. The latter, by their history, their values and their constant renewal are in the image of today’s society: mixed, committed and concerned about a more egalitarian and responsible world.”
The rapper’s response
For the first concerned, the rapper Médine, the situation seems to lend to smile. On social networks, he decided to respond on Sunday, in a first tweet, directly targeting the presentation video: “He changed AbdelBachir from Once upon a time in the wadi”, in reference to Djamel’s film Bensalah, evoking the story of a young Frenchman persuaded to come from the Maghreb, before offering his fans a reduction on tickets for his Albigensian concert. “So thanks to Lorenzo here is a promo code”.
Screenshot of the singer’s Twitter account
Screenshot of the singer’s Twitter account
Enough to start a surprising conversation via social networks, the activists of Patria Albigès, taking advantage of this unexpected visibility to send a message to their own supporters: “Even Medina advertises us, and you right-handed people on the web are for When ?” Exchanges that also seem to benefit the rapper, his Albigensian concert will soon be sold out.
A small group making headlines
Appearing on the local ashes of Génération identitaire, a group dissolved in the Council of Ministers in March 2021, the ten or so activists of Patria Albigès have been making headlines for two years. In particular, they were talked about at the end of October, following a violent attack, which occurred in the streets of Albi. Violent behavior that has been denounced by many activists and political figures in the territory. Altercations that the group does not claim, which evokes for only action “tractions, limping and collages of posters.”
