Rima Abdul Malak is indignant at “anti-Semitic remarks and attitudes” in Medina

2023-09-03 23:16:08

The Minister of Culture considers it inadmissible that the rapper was invited to the summer universities of environmentalists. He received, according to her, enormous publicity which he certainly did not deserve.

Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak ruled on Sunday that rapper Medina, a guest at environmentalist summer universities, had made “problematic comments and attitudes” in recent years, ranging from a gesture to a recent tweet, both “anti-Semitic”.

During meetings of the EELV party, then a debate at the LFI summer days, at the end of August, Médine assured that he was not anti-Semitic, pleading errors and blunders, as in the controversial tweet targeting the essayist Rachel Khan — Jewish and deportee’s granddaughter — for which he had to apologize.

“Medina, in recent years, has had a number of very problematic remarks and attitudes”estimated Rima Abdul Malak, guest Sunday of the program “Softpower” on France Culture.

“From the quenelle which is a very clearly anti-Semitic gesture, to song lyrics like ’’I am going to saw off the tree of secularism’’ (…) until a recent tweet that smacks of a fairly strong hint of anti-Semitism attacking Rachel Kahn, homophobic remarks, we are not going to list them all”she continued.

For the minister, “all this cannot be described simply as that in all lightness of awkwardness. It is much more serious than a clumsiness and for me it is inadmissible “.

According to Mme Abdul Malak, “today, the fight against anti-Semitism must have no ambiguity”. The ecologists “got lost in an attempt to create a buzz and it worked”she said again. “It made great publicity in Medina, which I regret.”

The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, had expressed his indignation at the end of August about the coming from Medina to the EELV summer universities.