The 'final straw': why French singer Médine is suing an MP over 'Islamist rapper' claim

OnOn Tuesday February 23rd the French rapper Médine announced that he had started legal action for defamation in Paris against the Member of Parliament Aurore Bergé. In an interview on LCI news channel on February 18th, the spokesperson for the ruling La République en Marche (LREM) party at the National Assembly had described the singer as an “Islamist rapper” who had “said that secularists should be killed”. The MP also accused him of “incitement to murder”.

It is not the first time that Médine, who was born in Le Havre in northern France in 1983 and is of Algerian descent, has come under attack from political figures. In 2018 the singer was due to appear at the Bataclan music venue in Paris, where Islamic State terrorists had killed 90 concert goers in November 2015. At the time the far-right politician Marine Le Pen accused Médine of directly or indirectly agreeing with Islamic fundamentalism. “No French person can accept this guy going to pour forth his garbage at the very location of the carnage at Bataclan. Indulgence towards or, worse, encouraging Islamic fundamentalism, we've had enough!” Tweeted the president of the far-right Rassemblement National.

Meanwhile the right-wing European Member of Parliament Brice Hortefeux, who was a minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy, declared at the time: “This gentleman should go and exercise his lack of talent elsewhere.”In the end Médine cancelled his performance.

In the song Voltaire, which is on his November 2020 album Grand Médine, the rapper sings of a “freedom of expression which bends with the rules”. He also attacks what he sees as a witch hunt against artists of “Muslim culture”. Mediapart asked Médine – full name Médine Zaouiche – about the reasons behind his decision to take legal against against the MP.

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Mediapart: You and your lyrics have already been attacked in the past by political figures and yet you didn't take legal action. Why have you done so this time against the LREM MP Aurore Bergé?

Médine: It was the final straw. I've seen the media U-turn performed by this faction of the government which in the process of becoming radicalised and adopting language that's found more on the Right, even the far-right. I get the impression that the time for dialogue is over. None of these people take the time to read our work. To open the book that we wrote in 2013 with [international relations academic] Pascal Boniface [editor's note, 'Don’t Panik', with a preface by academic and French senator Esther Benbassa, and published by Desclée De Brouwer in 2012]. To listen to the songs in depth. To look at the conference held at the ENS [editor's note, the prestigious higher education institute the École Normale Supérieure] in 2017 that Aurore Bergé refers to in her interview.

As a popular artist I'm able to respond to this slide towards extremism. I know how to access the media, I know the legal route which enables me to enforce my rights. I'm in the public eye, in the limelight, and I must serve as an example, a symbol even, to all the people who follow me. I want to show all those who suffer bullying and false accusations, like those made against me, that you can take action and say “Stop, it's over”.

Mediapart: What's the reasoning behind the legal action?

Médine: We are suing for defamation over the comments she made during an interview on LCI on Thursday February 18th. Aurore Bergé spoke of me in this way: “The one said that secularists should be killed”, “the one who incited murder”. She also described me as an “Islamist rapper”. She's ascribing an ideology to me which obviously isn't mine.

Mediapart: Aurore Bergé made reference to the song Don’t Laïk, which came out in 2015 and in which some of the lyrics talk about the crucifixion of secularists.

Médine: Aurore Bergé claims that I call for “secularists to be killed” in the song Don’t Laïk. To start with, she gets the quote wrong. The precise quote is “Let's crucify the secularists like at Golgotha”. It's a phrase that shouldn't be taken out of context. If you do so, the meaning changes. The song is a succession of absurdities, of oxymorons. It's a style of writing in which things are made more intense. The purpose being to exorcise laicity and restore it to its former standing. When you exorcise something it means banishing its demons.

In the same song I speak of “cherished values” that are “one hundred and ten years old” [editor's note, a reference to the formal separation of church and state in France in 1905] which are possessed by a certain number of the Republic's demons. If you're going to take phrases out of context like that, then the songs of [French singer Georges] Brassens would also have another meaning. For example, when a judge is buggered at the end of his song 'Le gorille' ('The gorilla'). If you isolated just one of its sentences it would mean something else. If you isolated the phrase of [singer Michel] Sardou who sings [editor's note, in 'Les villes de solitude' ('The cities of solitude') ] that he has a “wish to blow up a bank/To crucify the cashier”, that would say something completely different about the singer's song and his career. The [singer] Renaud also said: “Even the reggae version of Le Marseillaise [editor's note, the French national anthem]/Has always made me want to puke.”

Once again, it's in keeping with a writing style. Aurore Bergé has a striking ignorance of rap and style. I invite her to do what she should have done before talking on LCI. In other words, to go and see the ENS conference organised as part of La Plume et la Bitume [editor's note, a seminar] which is still available on the institution's site, and which speaks about precisely these different styles of writing, of metaphors, oxymorons, irreverence and irony.

Mediapart: What are you hoping for from this legal process?

Médine: I'm hoping for a conviction and a public apology. I'm going to ask for the lot: damages with interest. My honour is at stake. There comes a time when she'll have to respond and find some arguments, by studying her crib sheets a bit better. I'm asking her to prove that I really incited murder, that I was in some way equivocal concerning this lethal ideology. And that's impossible.

Mediapart: Are you confident about the outcome?

Médine: I am confident about my ability to take action, at any rate. I'm putting it in the hands of the legal system. I hope that those who deal with this case will be clear-sighted about the facts. I hope that it will be a calm process which will deal with facts and where there will be no speculation or adding to rumours by inventing comments that I never made. No longer will I just accept comments made by those who take the liberty of putting words in my mouth that I didn't say, or who attribute intentions to me that I don't have. From now on we'll take the legal route as a matter of course.

Mediapart: Why do you think that over recent years you have been targeted by various political figures?

Médine: In relation to Aurore Bergé, I think she chose me as an example because I encapsulate quite a lot of things in terms of what I represent and personify. In particular the fact that I'm Muslim, have a beard and come from an immigrant background. That makes me a kind of bogeyman that some politicians, who aren't being talked about and who need the profile, regularly use to restart the debate about the presence of Muslims in France. It's also linked to the country's history and, above all, the news. We're in the middle of a debate about “Islamo-Leftism”, about separatism. The issue of the veil comes up every year and that of the burkini every summer. And when you want to have a pop at Muslims in the world of culture then I'm kind of top of the list. I get the impression I'm part of the array of options.

Aurore Bergé is also close to Printemps Républicain [editor's note, a secular groups which says it fights against both the far right and political Islamism]. This movement certainly feels targeted by the song Don’t Laïk which, I remind you, attacks the manipulation of secularism to further political agendas, and it obviously remains indifferent to my desire that secularism is strictly applied in both its spirit and character.

Mediapart: What are the consequences of the public attacks by political figures on your life?

Médine: Initially, each time there was a controversy, politicians of all persuasions and people from all sections of society reacted to it. Journalists, political activists, sometimes teachers … people who, feeling their approach had been given legitimacy by a political speech or a political attack on me, made the most of the situation and piled in, making vile attacks and baiting me.

The attacks have calmed down a bit I think. Because I kept on debating, because I used facts to contradict those who were against me, and because I took apart - one by one - the arguments attacking me, today there's enough material on the internet to provide a response for people who wonder if Aurore Bergé's accusations are true or false. Anyone can watch the conference that she cites when talking to [journalist Jean-Michel] Aphatie and can see that she wasn't telling the truth. For her it's about a political agenda more than lucid criticism.

Today I get the impression that people are beginning to question more. Even among my detractors there are people who listen to me. They make the effort to find out a little more about me. They check what is being said by certain political figures who, on the other hand, think first and foremost about their own agenda. A section of the population doesn't just simply believe short sentences taken out of context or sweeping comments.

Aurore Bergé thought that, once again, she could use me in that debate to boost her media profile. To foster the image of someone who'd fight against Islamism in all its forms, whether cultural or academic. I think that was her intention.

I've nothing personal against her but I have all the information I need to show that I act in good faith. To add a humorous note, my only regret is to be taking legal action against the daughter of the French actor [editor's note, Alain Dorval] who is the French voice of Sylvester Stallone [editor's note, when English-language films and programmes featuring the American star are dubbed in French]. That was a voice I grew up with as a child. That aside, I'm going on the offensive against the attacks aimed at me, and I'll follow this process right through to the end.

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• The original French version of this interview can be found here.

English version by Michael Streeter