Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak ruled on Sunday that rapper Medina, a guest at environmentalist summer universities, had made “problematic comments and attitudes” in recent years, ranging from a gesture to a recent tweet, both “anti-Semitic”.
During meetings of the EELV party, then a debate at the LFI summer days, at the end of August, Médine assured that he was not anti-Semitic, pleading errors and blunders, as in the controversial tweet targeting the essayist Rachel Khan — Jewish and deportee’s granddaughter — for which he had to apologize.
“Medina, in recent years, has had a number of very problematic remarks and attitudes,” said Rima Abdul Malak, guest on the “Softpower” program on France Culture on Sunday.
“From the quenelle which is a very clearly anti-Semitic gesture, to song lyrics like ‘I’m going to saw off the tree of secularism’ (…) to a recent tweet which smells quite strongly of anti-Semitism attacking Rachel Kahn, homophobic remarks, we are not going to list them all, ”she continued.
For the Minister, “all of this cannot be described simply like that in all lightness of awkwardness. It is much more serious than a clumsiness and for me it is inadmissible”.
According to Mrs. Abdul Malak, “today, the fight against anti-Semitism must have no ambiguity”. Ecologists “misguided themselves in an attempt to create a buzz and, moreover, it worked,” she said. “It made great publicity in Medina, which I regret.”
The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, had expressed his indignation at the end of August about the coming from Medina to the EELV summer universities.