On May 13, the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Liverpool. This year, France will be represented by singer La Zarra, known for her hit “Tu t’en iras” and while the 25-year-old artist has received a lot of support so far, she has just found herself at the heart of a lively controversy.
Before going on stage in Liverpool, La Zarra was indeed to participate in a concert in Amsterdam this Saturday, April 15, 2023, a show called: “Eurovision in Concert” where all the other candidates perform. But a few hours before this event, the singer suddenly canceled her visit as well as several interviews scheduled for this week in “Télématin” on France 2 and on NRJ in the Cauet program.
“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your messages of love and support received since last night. I would have liked so much to be with you all, but sometimes life decides otherwise. So I’m going to need a few days to manage these difficult times. These moments of intimacy will be important for me. Thank you for your kindness” simply declared La Zarra without giving the reasons for the cancellation of this concert.
Her absence having greatly disappointed the fans but also the French citizens who think that she could have taken advantage of this concert to start to stand out, the French delegation explained to the organizers that the young woman was “very weak emotionally”. A member of her entourage then revealed that the singer would have recently learned bad news concerning the state of health of one of her relatives…
The Zarra victim of racism? The revelations of the head of the French delegation to Eurovision
This Thursday, April 20, 2023, Sud Radio shared an excerpt from an interview where Valérie Expert and Gilles Ganzmann interview Alexandra Redde-Amile, director of entertainment and games at France Télévisions and Head of the French delegation for Eurovision. Thus, when asked if she thinks this controversy would have taken place if La Zarra were French, she answers: “Today, I cut La Zarra from social networks because, I will be very honest with you, she receives a lot of racist criticism, let’s use the word!”.
Visibly annoyed and pained, she continues: “It’s all the more important because we need the French to be behind our artist. I’m going even further, how do you expect us to win Eurovision if even the country is not behind? How do you expect us to win the Eurovision if we are not carried by the French”. As a reminder, the singer La Zarra, whose real name is Fatima Zahra Hafdi, is Canadian and was born on August 25, 1997 in Montreal.
#LaZarra Was she a victim of racism? “I cut @LaZarra_ social media.” @AlexRedde Listen to the full interview tomorrow at 10 a.m. on Sud Radio media with @valerie_expert And @gillesgmannpic.twitter.com/Lte1nV6Eyt
— South Radio (@SudRadio) April 20, 2023
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