The concert of Bilal Hassani, claimed flag bearer of the LGBT community, planned in an old church in Metz (Moselle), has been canceled. The spectacle had angered radical Catholics. Thursday, April 6, the prosecutor’s office in Metz (Moselle) opens an investigation against X.
The concert of Bilal Hassani, claimed flag bearer of the LGBT community, planned in an old church in Metz (Moselle), was canceled on Wednesday April 5. Indeed, the show had angered radical Catholics.
Thursday, April 6, the prosecution of Metz (Moselle) opened an investigation against X. “The public prosecutor’s office in Metz (Moselle) decides to open an investigation against X for threat of offense against a person because of his sexual orientation, incitement to hatred against a person because of his sexual orientation and public provocation and not followed by ‘effect to commit a crime or an offence’, confirms Bernard Thomas, deputy prosecutor of the Metz court, contacted by telephone by France 3 Lorraine. The investigation is entrusted to the departmental security service of Moselle.
The Stop Homophobia and Mousse associations had filed a complaint against Civitas with the Metz prosecutor’s office for discrimination on the basis of gender identity, said their lawyer, Etienne Deshoulières.
I’m tired, it was starting to be worrying especially for my audience
On Wednesday April 5, due to threats made against the artist and his audience, Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani’s tour, explained “having decided with regret, sadness and spite, to cancel the show which was to be held in the former Saint-Pierre-Aux-Nonnains church. We cannot leave an appointment which was to be a moment of joy, of sharing and celebration, becoming a place of heightened tension and malevolence”.
In the evening, Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak said to herself “shocked” by this cancellation. “Faced with extremism, calls for hatred, violence, culture must remain a space of freedom and emancipation”she wrote on her Twitter account.
The next concert of the singer, ex-candidate representing France at Eurovision, is scheduled for Friday at the Metronum in Toulouse.