Tryo, Dionysos and even Shaka Ponk and Cali call in a forum to put up a barrier against the National Rally, four days before the first round of the legislative elections.
“Rock and RN are radically incompatible.” 230 personalities from the world of French rock called this Wednesday, June 26 in a column published in the French version of Rolling Stone to put up a barrier against the National Rally, four days before the first round of the legislative elections.
Tryo, Dionysos, Emily Loizeau, Les Wampas and Shaka Ponk, Sanseverino, FFF, Yarol Poupaud and Cali recall in this column “that rock has conveyed since its beginnings messages of open-mindedness, tolerance, freedom, protest against all forms of oppression.
“(Rock) has always been at the forefront of social progress, the (RN) defends conservatism and, in the name of protecting heritage, would like to freeze society in the past, even a fantasized past, which has never existed”, continue the signatories of this forum who insist on the political roots of rock.
“Withdrawal into oneself”
“Rock was born from a mix between blues, rhythm’n’blues and country, black and white music, and made segregationist America tremble”, they further indicate, specifying that rock was open from its beginnings to “queer artists such as Little Richard or Big Mama Thornton.”
Rock, they continue, also “raised itself against racism when the Beatles refused to play in a hall where segregation was in force”. In the 1970s, “rock continued the fight with Rock Against Racism, a movement which was already fighting against the rise of the far right in the United Kingdom.”
In the 1980s, rock became “synonymous with generosity and mutual aid with charitable events such as Live Aid, USA For Africa” before fighting “against Apartheid in South Africa” and calling “for release of Nelson Mandela. “The (rock) advocates openness, the (RN), withdrawal into oneself,” they conclude.
Timidity
Several hundred artists, including Clara Luciani, Eddy de Pretto, Gaël Faye and Shaka Ponk, have already called last week to block the far right during the legislative elections. The world of culture has timidly made its voice heard since Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly.
A first series of personalities, including the authors Pierre Lemaitre and Annie Ernaux, Nobel Prize winners for literature, or the actresses Anna Mouglalis and Romane Bohringer, had called for a union “of the left and the environmentalists” to prevent a victory for the extreme right.
The performing arts unions also called for mobilization against the far right, as did authors, in a collective text signed in particular by the winner of the last Goncourt Prize, Jean-Baptiste Andrea, the author of detective novels Franck Thilliez or still comic book authors like Catherine Meurisse.
On Instagram, actress Marion Cotillard published a photo where she wears a badge “Youth annoys the National Front”, in reference to Rubbish by Bérurier Noir, a punk anthem which attacked the party which has since become the National Rally in the 1980s.
