2023-08-24 21:44:43
From our special correspondent in Le Havre (Seine-Maritime)
All that for this ? It is an understatement to say that the event was expected in everyone’s mind. The event? The dialogue organized during the Summer Days of Europe Ecology – The Greens in Le Havre between Marine Tondelier, the leader of the party, and the successful rapper Médine, local of the stage. Let’s already spoil the end of the story: the hour of speech was the place of a good discussion on anti-Semitism, writing, artistic commitment and discrimination. And it was the idea of the ecologists, who wanted to talk about the convergence of the struggles with the rapper at the forefront of Islamophobia, racism, police violence, but who also got involved during the social movement against pension reform. The meeting was also intended as an “explanation of text” on the work of Medina, which is sometimes controversial.
Because the rapper has long been criticized for some of his past positions or texts, especially on anti-Semitism. He has since largely returned to it, which does not prevent him from being the object of regular racist and Islamophobic attacks. His visit to environmentalists was no exception. The controversy nevertheless took a more serious turn after Medina, in a tweet, described the essayist Rachel Khan, who had just called it “waste to be sorted”, “ResKHANpée”. The author is the granddaughter of a Jewish deportee. A clearly anti-Semitic “pun”. Should the invitation be withdrawn? Much of the political scene has urged environmentalists to do so. EELV was also partly divided on the question, it was ultimately nothing: “Cancelling would have been a failure for nothing”, assures Tondelier.
Acquired room
Even among those who were for the coming of Medina, especially the greens who could have done without the controversy, a certain excitement reigned before the meeting, scheduled for the end of this first day. And, in truth, the tension was palpable in the plenary hall of these Summer Days, where about a thousand people – white heads and blond heads – had crowded, that is to say about half of the registered delegates. First in silence: how will Medina be welcomed? The doubts were quickly lifted: standing ovation for the Le Havre rapper. “It’s obvious, you’re welcome here,” commented Marine Tondelier, and it was not denied for an hour.
It must be said that Medina gave the change. He explains: faced with Rachel Khan’s insult, he “overreacted”. “I had absolutely not measured the historical and emotional charge of this word (survivor, editor’s note). Nor did I target Rachel Khan’s family, or anyone who lived through the Holocaust. Clear, even if we might have liked Marine Tondelier to ask the rapper if he considers that his tweet was anti-Semitic. On the merits, Medina claims never to have “made a hierarchy between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism” and claims a kind of struggle “on the ground”. Supporting evidence with his book Don’t panic: don’t be afraid, signed with Pascal Boniface, more than ten years ago, where anti-Semitism was already treated: “My party is to deconstruct these conspiratorial ideas. »
Not a revolution
Not so pushed to its limits by Marine Tondelier and a room that was just waiting to be convinced, we must note that Medina has eluded few of the controversies it drags on. As on the “quenelle”, an anti-Semitic gesture popularized by Dieudonné more than ten years ago, to which he lent himself. He believes he was “mistaken, like others” and regrets “not having detached myself from it early enough and firmly enough (…) Maybe now is the time”. “If the politicians could apologize as well as you, we might not be here”, launched Marine Tondelier in conclusion.
We did not revolutionize this Thursday in Le Havre the fight against anti-Semitism. And, obviously, the controversy will have been an opportunity to see how much the question has been outsourced for a while by left-wing parties. “We have to look at this reality,” concedes David Cormand, former party leader and MEP. “A lot of people did not see the problem of the tweet”, remarks MP Sandrine Rousseau, jostled by her base, in particular on discrimination, when she expressed her doubts about the invitation from Medina. “There was a shock of discrimination, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic. We must think of intersectionality (the articulation and addition of different discriminations) and not the competition of discriminations. If anything comes out of it, it would be interesting to make a subject of it. »
We are not there yet. But after three weeks of racist controversy and anti-Semitism, we were treated to a really interesting discussion between Marine Tondelier and Médine. It’s called doing politics, in the noblest sense of the term. But beyond the thousand witnesses on the spot, and the few others who will have seen it online, it is to be feared that there remains, still, only the controversy.
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