Soprano, Angèle, Oli… Two days before the legislative elections, several prominent artists have spoken out, but nothing compared to the positions taken by the sector against the FN in the 1980s.
While star singers like Jean-Jacques Goldman were on the front line against the National Front in the 1980s, their heirs are making themselves heard less at a time when the RN is dominating the polls for the legislative elections.
Telephone, Francis Cabrel, Alain Bashung, Jean-Jacques Goldman or even Indochine… It was the poster for Friends concert from June 15, 1985 at La Concorde in Paris at the initiative of SOS Racisme, for “living together” and against “racial discrimination and the National Front”. In 1984, the FN received, to everyone’s surprise, 10.95% in the European elections. A record at the time. Today, its descendant, the National Rally, and its allies are well ahead with 36% of voting intentions three days before the legislative elections in the polls.
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But few great voices take the microphone. Soprano (1.7 million followers on Instagram) is one of the exceptions, launching on RTL: “Many people have forgotten how this party is built. (…) I was born in Marseille (…) where there was a young man who was shot dead by the National Front poster-stickers.” On February 21, 1995, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Franco-Comorian, was shot in the back by a poster hanger for the FN.
“Vote against the extreme right, the mif (the family, Editor’s note)»also posted Angèle, a Belgian singer produced in France (3.7 million followers on Instagram). The artist also relays an interview with Rachel Silvera, a lecturer at the University of Paris-Nanterre, who emphasizes that the RN is “anti-feminist”. “The intervention of singers today is real but timid, music has lost its leading role in the opposition to the values of the RN”analysis for AFP Odile de Plas, head of the music department at the magazine Telerama.
«“Far from politics”
Because for the moment, rap heavyweights like Ninho (5 million followers on Instagram) or Jul (4.3 million) are silent. Oli, half of the rap duo formed with his brother Bigflo, calls out on Instagram “to go and vote and to block the RN which is playing with fire, diverting the doubts of a part of the population and fueling the division of our beautiful country”. But he boxes in the lower division (1.3 million followers on Instagram). “In rap, the big artists stay very far away from politics and repeat that they did not wait for the current situation to be victims of discrimination”Odile de Plas bounces back.
By comparison, in other spheres, leading personalities – Squeezie, the second most followed YouTuber in France (8.8 million followers on Instagram) or Kylian Mbappé, football megastar (119 million) – have taken a stand on their networks or in front of the media. While filmmaker Alice Diop is highlighted on the front page of Release with an interview where she expresses disgust and anger at the RN, in music it is often necessary to list the signatures in collective forums.
“Vomit Emojis”
Clara Luciani, Eddy de Pretto, Gaël Faye and Shaka Ponk thus emerge in the one published with the Syndicat des musiques contemporains (SMA) on the Inrocks website. Shaka Ponk also joins Dionysos, FFF, Tryo, Yael Naim, Skip The Use, Gauvin Sers and Les Wampas in an online forum entitled Rock annoys the RN, which has gone beyond the circle of guitar groups. “Some musicians explain that, on social networks, they receive torrents of hatred if they take a stand, people tell them “we don’t want to hear you talk politics””underlines the head of the music department of Telerama.
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The singer November Ultra regrets seeing on Instagram “vomit emojis” posted under his positions in favor of the New Popular Front, with messages to the “accusing of propaganda or living in a teddy bear world”. “Asking us to shut up and just entertain you, (it’s) as if we were not human beings but things”she still laments. “Musicians also say that past battles against the RN have not paid off”Odile de Plas finally concludes.
