“Babies detect beauty. They don’t vote for rap, nor for banal language, nor for Aya Nakamura but for Mozart!” : this verbatim signed Eric Zemmour seems to be unanimous in the grounds of the Dôme de Paris where Reconquête is holding its first big rally of the European election campaign on Sunday March 10.
It must be said that since L’Express revealed her possible participation in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, Aya Nakamura has unleashed passions to the point of seeing France divided into two camps: the pro and the anti, who reject the Franco-Malian star. A “rancid France”, according to Carole Boinet, editorial director of the cultural magazine The Unrockuptibles.
This France, which takes offense, among other things, at the freedom of tone taken by the singer, who tries out medleys of vocabularies borrowed from the four corners of the world. “Aya Nakamura invented this language which is wonderful”, argues to AFP Carole Boinet who shares with Emmanuel Macron the wish to see the most listened to singer in France sing the song at the Olympic Games next July. A “compelling” need, according to her.
Passing of arms between Nakamura and the far right
Even more so at a time when racist remarks are flooding onto social networks. The day before, the far-right media black book published the photo of a banner held by activists from the small ultra-right group Les Natifs. In capital letters, the lyrics of one of Aya Nakamura’s songs remixed: “There’s no way Aya – Here it’s Paris – Not the Bamako market”.
Salty response embellished with a few spelling mistakes from the person concerned from her X account (formerly Twitter) a few hours later: “You can be racist but not deaf 📷.. That’s what hurts you! I’m becoming number 1 state topic in debates etc. but what do I really owe you? Kedal”. A few minutes will be enough for Eric Zemmour to repeat the artist’s tweet, in a publication tinged with irony. “It’s a good idea to think…”.
The music industry is on a roll
The times are like this: very quickly, the canvas catches fire. In France and beyond, the “Djadja” star’s supporters come to his rescue. On his social networks, the heavyweight of French RnB, Dadju, supports the singer by insisting: “she must sing”, promising to “support” the artist. And to call the far-right activists having brandished the banner “Here is Paris, not the Bamako market” a “band of dogs”.
And in just a few hours, a large part of the music industry seems to have united behind Aya Nakamura. “It’s amazing, it’s unforgivable that racists can attack an artist for her origins and her skin color, while the Olympics transcend borders,” Angelo Gopee, boss of Live Nation France, national branch of one of the largest show producers in the world. “It’s not a tweet from a minister that’s needed, all politicians should be up to speed,” he protests.
“Racism is not an opinion”
Because if several politicians expressed their support for the 28-year-old singer after the attacks, many decided not to comment on the controversy. In the government, only Amélie Oudéa-Castéra seems to have had a comforting word for the singer. “No matter how much we love you, dear @AyaNakamuraa, don’t care about the whole world. With you,” the Minister of Sports and Olympic Games published on her networks.
The corridors of the National Assembly also seem to remain sealed off from this political-media affair. Among the messages of support publicly addressed to the young woman, that of the Insoumis MP Antoine Léaument, very present on social networks, who directly attacks the small far-right group Les Natifs: “They claim to love their country but they want exclude the most listened to French-speaking singer in the world since Edith Piaf. We cannot be racist and patriotic in France”, lectures the elected official from Essonne in a message published on X.
For her part, the former Secretary of State for Equality between Women and Men Marlène Schiappa denounced “the violence of racist and sexist remarks against Aya Nakamura […] (which) borders on national harassment against a young woman”. And Marlène Schiappa recalls that “racism is not an opinion, it is a crime”.