Medina at the EELV summer days: the mayors of Bordeaux and Strasbourg will not come
Pierre Hurmic, ecologist mayor of Bordeaux, and his Strasbourg counterpart Jeanne Barseghian have let their entourage know that they will not be going to their party’s summer days this week in Le Havre. A decision made due to the controversial programming of the rapper Médine at the event.
After the moods, the defections. The return of the Greens will thus be without Ms. Barseghian, who considers that “Medina has a too ambiguous position on anti-Semitism”, explained to AFP a spokesperson for the mayor of Strasbourg. An allusion to the recent tweet of the controversial artist, who revived the recurring accusations against him by qualifying the essayist Rachel Khan, Jewish and granddaughter of deportees, of “resKHANpée” in a message on X (ex-Twitter) .
The rapper had apologized for this “unsuitable formula, which must have offended people”.
“Not at all an act of claim or opposition”
The Alsatian councilor “had pleaded for the cancellation of the participation” of the rapper in the summer days of the environmentalist party, “but this is not the option that was chosen”, added this same source. On the Gironde side, Pierre Hurmic split a brief press release to announce that he “will stay [t] alongside the people of Bordeaux this week” because of the heat wave, while affirming that “anti-Semitism, ‘wherever he comes, is an infamy to be fought’. “We have too many challenges to overcome to disperse ourselves in futile controversies,” said the mayor of Bordeaux, his entourage confirming that this decision is “particularly linked to the controversy that arose” from the tweet in question.
For the leadership of the party, these two absences are “not at all an act of claim or internal opposition”, told AFP the organizer of the summer days, Léa Balage El Mariky. “Everyone has the right to express a different sensitivity,” tempers a close friend of Secretary General Marine Tondelier. The mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, has also confirmed his presence in Le Havre despite the quarrel over Medina: “I will go listen to him and I will form my own opinion, far from comments and gossip”, a- he said on Saturday on BFMTV.
Several leading environmentalists, however, expressed their discomfort last week, from Julien Bayou to Sandrine Rousseau, including Karima Delli and Noël Mamère. Despite these dissensions, Ms. Tondelier maintained her debate with the artist on Thursday at the end of the day, while warning that she would be “extremely attentive to what Medina will say” on this occasion and “the days that will follow”.
This article is originally published on lepoint.fr
