Choosing Aya Nakamura to perform Edith Piaf songs for the 2024 Olympics amounts to “humiliating the French”, according to the far right National Rally leader, Marine Le Pen.
ADVERTISEMENTAya Nakamura has not yet been confirmed to sing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, but reports that French President Emmanuel Macron has sounded her out to headline the event have sparked a racism row in the country.
The possibility that the French-Malian pop singer might perform from the repertoire of national treasure Edith Piaf has caused indignation among some far-right supporters.
Nakamura is the most listened-to French artist in the world and the only woman to feature in the country’s top 20 bestselling albums of 2023.
But the Olympics speculation has made her the target of what the organising committee of the Paris Games has described as a “shockingly racist” campaign.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen called her presence "not a beautiful symbol” and an “additional provocation from Emmanuel Macron".
Le Pen told France Inter on Wednesday, that Macron "must get up every morning" and find "one idea a day to humiliate and outrage the French".
She also criticised Nakamura for not singing in French and said she did not represent France.
“I’m not even going to tell you about the entourage. I'm going to talk to you about her outfit, her vulgarity, the fact that she doesn't sing French. She doesn't sing foreign either. She sings we don’t know what".
Marine Le Pen is not alone in targeting Nakamura. She's also been the victim of a fierce online hate campaign.
At a campaign rally earlier this month for the Reconquête party, led by far-right former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, Nakamura’s name drew boos from the crowd.
A small extremist group calling themselves Les Natifs (the 'Natives) also held up a banner on the banks of the Seine, denouncing the singer's Malian origins.
“There’s no way Aya, this is Paris, not the Bamako market,” the banner read.
According to one poll, 73 per cent of French people think that Nakamura does not represent “French” music, while 63 per cent oppose the idea of her headlining the opening ceremony.
Nakamura was defended by the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and Rachida Dati, the Minister of Culture:
“ No matter how much we love you, dear Aya Nakamura, don’t care about the whole world,” wrote Amélie Oudea-Castera on X.
Dati warned the activists that "attacking someone out of pure racism...attacking an artist for who she is is unacceptable. It’s a crime".
In response, Nakamura wrote:
"You can be racist but not deaf. That's what hurts you! I'm becoming a number 1 state subject in debates etc. but what do I really owe you?"
ADVERTISEMENTIn response to public debate about the unorthodox way she uses the French language - a mixture of French with slang, English and other languages brought to France through immigration - Nakamura told AFP “I can understand why some people say: ‘Who does she think she is, mocking us in our French language?"
“But it’s important to accept the culture of others, and, me, I have two cultures”.
For Carole Boinet of culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles, the reaction of the far right has made it more important that Nakamura perform at the Olympics.
“Aya Nakamura invented this language which is fantastic. She has crazy hits – France should be proud to have an artist like her known internationally,” Boinet told AFP.
“It’s a controversy that comes from the backward side of France but it’s not they who will decide. I hope she will sing at the Olympics – it has become imperative,” she added.
ADVERTISEMENTMeanwhile, a recent YouGov poll found that more French people would prefer DJ and producer David Guetta or Daft Punk to perform in the Olympics opening ceremony, than Nakamura. That's despite most of their lyrics being recorded in English.
