This is the controversy of the moment… While she was in full performance in Beaulieu-sur-Mer on July 6, 2023, Izia Higelin wanted to mix politics and music by attacking Emmanuel Macron in full show. An error that has earned him a media lynching for several days. It is through a video relayed on numerous occasions that Internet users were able to discover the very committed speech of the daughter of Jacques Higelin, the singer who died on April 6, 2018.
In said video, we hear the 32-year-old artist notably let go: “He said to himself, what would be good, what the people want, is to hang me twenty meters from the ground, like a giant human piñata”. “And that we’re all here with huge bats with nails, like in A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), you see”she continued, referring to Emmanuel Macron before concluding: “And there we’d bring him down, but with all the grace and kindness that the people of the South have. And we’d all have our bats, with our little nails. And in a bengal fire of bonfire, of living flesh and blood, we would put him on the ground. But gently, you see…”.
See also: Jacques Higelin: 4 years after the death of the artist, Izïa and Arthur H pay him a moving tribute
Izïa Higelin says she is “sorry” but does not apologize for all that
In front of a flabbergasted audience, Izia Higelin was even chased by law enforcement at the end of her performance. Today, the young singer sees her performance scheduled in Marcq-en-Barœul for the National Day canceled. Bernard Gérard, the mayor of Marcq-en-Barœul, has indeed declared that the coming of this artist for a public, free and family concert would be in contradiction with the values of gathering which prevail during our National Day.
This Monday, July 10, the main interested party finally broke the silence during an interview with West France. She claims to be “sorry that this was misinterpreted, decontextualized”. “At no time, of course, did I want to incite violence or hatred”she says before continuing: “It’s a story, an improvised and surreal link between two titles that talks about everything and nothing and that shouldn’t be taken at face value”.
A “fantasy story” for the singer
When our colleagues ask her if she is aware of the “violence of words”Izia Higelin defends : “At no time in my concerts do I incite violence or hatred. They are always places of benevolence and love, madness and improvisation. That’s just it, pure and simple”. To conclude, the artist considers it to be a “fantasized story, a shared moment of free spirit, artistic”… It remains to be seen whether this “defense” will convince the mayor of Marcq-en-Barœul to reschedule it for July 14, 2023.
RF