“We cannot let a meeting which was supposed to be a moment of joy, sharing and celebration, become a place of heightened tension and malevolence”. This is how Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani’s tour, made the decision “with regret, sadness and spite”, to cancel the concert scheduled for Wednesday in Metz, in the desecrated church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains. “It is unthinkable to let the public run a risk, even a small one”he supports in a long press release.
The first meeting of the Théorème Tour – tour of the singer on the occasion of the release of his third album entitled Theorem – will therefore not take place. “In view of the threats made against Bilal Hassani and his audience as part of his concert in Metz today”Live Nation preferred to simply cancel the date.
“Our duty as show producers is also to protect our public and preserve them from any possible aggression, in an environment that risks being hostile and escaping a secure framework.the production is justified. We cannot let a meeting that was supposed to be a moment of joy, sharing and celebration, become a place of increased tension and malevolence.
“At the heart of a civilizational struggle”
A cancellation that responds to the threats of a Catholic collective by the name of Aurora Lorraine, who describes himself as “at the heart of a civilizational, cultural and social struggle”. In a video posted on Instagram, the collective claims that the old church would have been “Hideously desecrated by a ‘show’ by transgender singer Bilal Hassani”. “Bilal Hassani has no place in this place”he who “took himself for God several times like on the cover of the magazine Stubborn in 2021», still hit the collective with the media Lorraine Actu. The collective still believes that the church, deconsecrated but converted into a concert hall, must offer “worthy musical performances”.
The controversy relayed on social networks by Françoise Grolet, regional councilor for the Grand-Est region and elected member of the National Rally, who called for a return “in common sense”. An identity tension, rather, with thinly veiled homophobia and transphobia.