France is seeking to ban Kanye West from performing in Marseille after backlash over his history of antisemitic remarks.
The American rapper and producer is scheduled to perform a concert at Marseille’s Velodrome stadium on June 11, but his upcoming show has sparked backlash in France.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez is ‘highly determined’ and is exploring ‘all options’ to ban the rapper’s only concert in France this summer, a source close to the minister told AFP.
Earlier this year, the city’s socialist mayor Benoît Payan declared the ‘Gold Digger’ hitmaker was ‘not welcome’ in Marseille, stating on social media: ‘I refuse to let Marseille be a showcase for those who promote hatred and unabashed Nazism.’
France’s plan to block West from performing in Marseille comes after he was barred from entering the UK, where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July.
Festival organisers cancelled the three-day outdoor event as a result of the travel ban and said those who had bought tickets would get refunds.
West had applied for an electronic travel authorisation to visit the UK, but it was blocked by the government because his presence in the country would not be ‘conducive to the public good.’
‘Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,’ Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement posted on social media.
‘This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.’
The rapper had been expected to play his first UK dates for more than a decade in front of around 150,000 revellers over three nights, July 10-12, at the Wireless Festival, in London’s Finsbury Park. Other acts for the festival had not yet been announced.
The event’s organisers had been under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
The 48-year-old apologised in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal.
He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into ‘a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behaviour that destroyed my life.’
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Ye’s actions amounted to a ‘pattern of behaviour’, citing the song and merchandise, and accused him of using mental health as an excuse.