Emmanuel Macron persists and signs. The French president said Thursday that the Franco-Malian singer Aya Nakamura had “every place in an opening or closing ceremony” of the Paris Olympic Games, seeing it as “a good thing”.
Last February, The Express had revealed that Emmanuel Macron had received the most “streamed” French-speaking singer in the world at the Elysée, to find out if she might be interested in singing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. In particular, the prospect of her singing Édith Piaf, perhaps the greatest French musical icon internationally.
But the possibility of Aya Nakamura participating in the festivities around the Paris Games had aroused the indignation of the right and the far right who saw it as a way of “dividing” and “humiliating” the French. Several weeks of controversy then followed, marked by a racist banner condemned by the organizing committee of the Games and several members of the government “There’s no way Aya – This is Paris – Not the Bamako market”.
Emmanuel Macron added that the decision on the singer’s participation fell to the organizers of the ceremonies… even though it was he himself who seemed to have imposed this choice, again according to information from L’Express.
The opening ceremony on the Seine still “privileged”
Visiting to inaugurate the new aquatic center of Saint-Denis, the Head of State assured this Thursday that the “preferred scenario” remained an opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine despite the threat of attack, even if “Fallback scenarios” are planned if “circumstances require it”.
“The preferred scenario, the one that we are preparing, the one that we assume, the one that we want, is obviously the one that has been planned with all the organizers and the details of which will be revealed in due course,” declared Emmanuel Macron.