France probes racist backlash against Nakamura over Olympics

PARIS

French investigators have opened an inquiry over alleged racism against French-Malian pop superstar Aya Nakamura following reports she might perform at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, prosecutors said Friday.

The probe follows the filing of a complaint by the France-based International League against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA) on Wednesday, they said.

The 28-year-old superstar is known worldwide for hits like "Djadja", which has close to a billion streams on YouTube alone.

The alleged racist abuse began after media reports said the singer had discussed the possibility of performing a song by 20th-century icon Edith Piaf at a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron last month, though neither party has confirmed it.

At a campaign rally on Sunday for the Reconquest party, led by far-right former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, Nakamura's name drew boos from the crowd.

A small extremist group, the Natives, hung a banner by the River Seine that read: "There's no way Aya. This is Paris, not the Bamako market."

SOS Racism, another group battling discrimination, said on X that it had also filed an official complaint over "acts of incitement to discrimination and racist cyberbullying" against the artist.

It said she had been "the victim of waves of racist hate driven by the far right".

The Olympics organising committee told AFP on Monday that it had been "very shocked" by the backlash against the singer, and Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera also expressed her support on X saying: "It doesn't matter, people love you. Don't worry about anything."

Nakamura responded on social media: "You can be racist but not deaf... That's what hurts you! I'm becoming a number 1 state subject in debates... but what do I really owe you? Nada."

Nakamura has faced right-wing criticism in the past for the liberties she takes with the French language using the familiar argot of hip-hop.

"I can understand why some people say: 'Who does she think she is, mocking us in our French language?'" Nakamura told AFP in a recent interview.

"But it's important to accept the culture of others, and, me, I have two cultures."

Carole Boinet of culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles said the far right had, ironically, made it more vital 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.