The case dates back to June 2021. While campaigning for his re-election, the president of the Ile-de-France region posted a video on social networks that surprised everyone: the rapper Gims saying he was “proud to have been collaborating for a few now years with Valérie Pécresse”… On TV sets, Nicolas Sarkozy’s ex-minister confides that he met “in the neighborhoods” the one who is presented as one of his supporters.
Unexpected, this Pécresse-Gims duo will quickly turn out to be a badly calculated publicity stunt. Where is this video from? “Further investigation” wanted to know more. The journalist Nathalie Sapena went to question the person who put the artist and the regional elected official in touch. Sami Sellami runs a large association, of which Gims has been the sponsor for several years. With him, he set up an ambitious project, the Talent Marathon. Objective: to unearth, throughout Ile-de-France, “the Gims of tomorrow”. Supported and subsidized by the Region, the competition is a success. The association receives 1,500 videos of young musicians performing, often with the means at hand, hits from Gims.
Did Gims feel indebted?
It was to discuss the progress of the project that Sami Sellami and Gims had an appointment with the president of the region, the day this video was filmed. But by whom? By Sami Bellami? No, by “people from Valérie Pécresse’s communication team”, he answers. Twelve days before the first round of the regional elections, one would think that it was made to support his candidacy… This is denied by Sami Sellami, while considering that its impact will have “exceeded the project, and perhaps served from an electoral point of view”.
Rapper Gims (who did not wish to answer questions from “Complément d’Enquête”) did he really get involved in politics – on the right, what’s more? “Edid he share the thing again, did he go ‘Go vote for So-and-so’? No, not at all, and I don’t think he ever will.” complete Sami Sellami. Did Gims feel indebted? The Region has granted a grant of 150,000 euros for this project.
Extract from “People and politics, small services between friends?”, a document to see in “Complément d’Enquête” on February 3, 2022.
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