In a video posted Tuesday on his Twitter account, Rama Yade supported Gims. The singer was strongly criticized for remarks on Africa, made during an interview on the YouTube channel Oui Hutsle on March 22.
During the interview, the artist, crowned with a music victory in 2016, is asked about the situation on the African continent. Gims then assured that the Egyptians mastered electricity and that chivalry already existed in Africa. Claims largely denied by historians and which have triggered strong criticism against the singer.
From Washington, where she is Africa director of the American think tank Atlantic Council, Rama Yade sent her support directly to Gims via a four-minute message. “I don’t defend you because you need to, but I do it for our children. It may not be the letter of what you said that is important, but the spirit,” she says. In her message, the former regional councilor of Île-de-France, recognizes all the same the inaccuracy of the remarks of Gims, but she advances innovations of which Africa would be the instigator. “There may not have been electricity on the pyramids, but there was much better than that. It is in Africa that Man became bipedal. The Stone Age also began in Africa”, she announces.
Rama Yade claims to see, in the singer’s vision of African history, the desire to “correct an injustice, repair Africans in their dignity as men and for that, I gladly salute you”. She did not fail to also attack the detractors of Gims. “I saw how from Paris, many made fun of you. I have seen with what delight some have challenged the idea of African leadership, as if it were something aberrant,” she said.
