The concert of an LGBT + singer in a former church canceled after a Catholic mobilization

MISE À DAY

The concert of a singer, claimed flag bearer of the LGBT + community, scheduled for Wednesday in an old church in eastern France, has been canceled, after a controversy led by local Catholic and traditionalist movements.

“We cannot let a meeting that was supposed to be a moment of joy, sharing and celebration, become a place of heightened tension and malevolence,” Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani’s tour, said in a statement. .

In view of the threats made against the artist and his audience, the producer has decided “with regret, sadness and spite” to cancel the show scheduled for Saint-Pierre -Aux-Nonnains, in Metz, a large city in the east of the country.

The Lorraine Catholique collective had shouted at “profanation”, in the middle of Holy Week, in a message on its widely relayed blog. He called for a prayer of reparation before the concert, in front of the old church, desecrated for 500 years and transformed into a performance hall.

The next concert of the singer, ex-candidate representing France at the Eurovision, is scheduled for Friday in Toulouse, in the south-west of the country.

For the Aurora Lorraine identity group, which had joined in the protests, the cancellation of the concert is “a victory”.

The mayor of Metz, François Grosdidier, replied: “Their indignation rests on nothing: for five centuries Saint-Pierre-Aux-Nonnains is no longer a church. It is a cultural hall that is part of the Cité Musicale Metz!».

The city councilor is sorry that the producer of Bilal Hassani «gives in to a form of intellectual terrorism, to the detriment of culture» . “We can like or not like Bilal Hassani, what is inadmissible is that in the name of an ideology we cancel a concert. It is a setback for freedom of expression and a concession made to homophobic extremists.”

Ludovic Mendes, Renaissance MP for Moselle, said he was “dismayed” by this cancellation, and announced that he was going to ask the Minister of the Interior “for the dissolution of the identity groups at the origin of these intimidations”.