A concert scheduled for Wednesday in an old church in eastern France by a singer allegedly flag-bearer of the LGBT+ community has been canceled after a controversy led by local Catholic and traditionalist movements.
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“We cannot allow a gathering that should be a moment of joy, sharing and celebration to become a place of heightened tension and wickedness,” said Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani’s tour, in a statement.
Faced with the threats against the artist and his audience, the producer decided “with regret, sadness and defiance” to cancel the show planned for Saint-Pierre-Aux-Nonnains in Metz, a major city in the east of the country.
In the middle of Holy Week, the Lorraine Catholique collective denounced “profanation” in a post on its widely circulated blog. He called for a reparation prayer before the concert in front of the old church, which had been desecrated for 500 years and turned into a performance hall.
The next concert of the singer, former France candidate in the Eurovision Song Contest, is scheduled for Friday in Toulouse in the south-west of the country.
For identity group Aurora Lorraine, which has joined the protests, the cancellation of the concert is “a victory”.
The mayor of Metz, François Grosdidier, replied: “Your outrage is based on nothing: Saint-Pierre-Aux-Nonnains has not been a church for five centuries. It is a cultural hall that is part of the Cité Musicale Metz!
The city council is sorry that Bilal Hassani’s producer is giving in to “a form of intellectual terrorism to the detriment of culture”. “We may or may not like Bilal Hassani, it is unacceptable for us to cancel a concert in the name of an ideology. It is a throwback to freedom of expression and a concession to homophobic extremists.”
Ludovic Mendes, Renaissance MP for Moselle, said he was “dismayed” by the cancellation and announced he would ask the interior minister to “disband the identity groups underlying this intimidation”.