Court overturns ban on rapper Freeze Corleone’s concerts

The Paris administrative court ruled that the risk of disturbing public order during the rapper’s concerts was “not demonstrated”.

The two concerts of the controversial rapper Freeze Corleone at the Zénith in Paris, which had been banned by the police headquarters for accusations of anti-Semitism, will finally be able to take place on Friday November 24 and Saturday November 25, the courts have decided. Seized in summary proceedings (emergency) by the rapper, the Paris administrative court ruled on Friday that the decisions of the police headquarters concerned “a serious and manifestly illegal attack on freedom of expression and assembly”. He therefore suspended the order taken on November 21 by the prefect of police Laurent Nuñez.

The police headquarters had forbidden Freeze Corleone from participating in the first concert on Friday, given by the 667 collective of which he is the founder, and had banned the second Saturday, scheduled in his own name. “The risk of committing an offense likely to undermine respect for the dignity of the human person (…) and cause a disturbance to public order has not been demonstrated”ruled the administrative court.

“No disturbance to public order”

To justify the ban, the police headquarters argued that the rapper’s texts contained “numerous conspiratorial and anti-Semitic references”and that his concerts took place “in a particularly tense geopolitical context” due to the war between Israel and Hamas. The administrative court objected that “texts containing passages of an anti-Semitic nature do not appear on the concert program” Friday and Saturday. “The investigation carried out on this subject following a report in 2020 was closed without further action”he continues in his decision.

He also notes that “the concert, recently given by the artist in Foirac, which includes a program of songs identical to that planned for the concerts of November 24 and 25, 2023, did not give rise to any disturbance of public order, nor elsewhere his previous concerts”.

In March, the Council of State had already rejected the appeal from the city of Rennes which wanted to ban the 31-year-old rapper from performing. A prominent figure in French rap, Freeze Corleone (real name Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté) was released in September 2020 by his label Universal Music which denounced “unacceptable racist comments”. On YouTube, his clips have several million views.