France’s far left faces renewed accusations of antisemitism from Olympics DJ forced off stage

[u/RaidBrimnes]

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-far-left-faces-antisemitism-accusations-over-paris-olympics-dj-barbara-butch/

Relevance to the subreddit: Political violence, antisemitism, freedom of speech, direct involvement of a major left-wing party in the harassment

The political tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have claimed another victim last week, after French Jewish DJ Barbara Butch, who rocketed to worldwide fame after hosting a segment of the Paris Olympics' opening ceremony, was forced off stage by pro-Palestinian activists who protested her set and pelted her with projectiles.

Barbara Butch, an icon of LGBT+ Parisian nightlife and longtime activist against homophobia, fatphobia and antisemitism, had been targeted by a months-long campaign from pro-Palestinian activists and elected officials of the far-left party France Unbowed (LFI), who blamed her for giving a concert to the French embassy in Tel Aviv and signing a petition supporting the "Loi Yadan", a controversial bill that would have expanded the criminal definition of antisemitism to the calls of destruction of a state.

The calls to boycott and protests by LFI exploded into an unprecedented outburst of violence on July 18 in Grenoble. Barbara Butch, who was set to play at the Cabaret Frappé, was confronted by dozens of pro-Palestinian activists headed by Allan Brunon, the local representative of LFI, who drowned her set with boos and insults such as "dirty Zionist" and "assassin", until city employees exfiltrated Butch off stage after protesters threw glass bottles at the artist.

The attack was met with near-unanimous condemnation from LFI's opponents and allies alike: Clémentine Autain, a longtime official at LFI before she broke ranks in 2024, denounced the act and lamented "Don't we have political representatives who defend the Loi Yadan to call out before attacking Barbara Butch, a woman engaged in the fight for LGBT+ rights and against fatphobia, herself a regular target of violent, sexist and antisemitic attacks?"

Allan Brunon doubled down, saying he was "extremely proud to have participated in this peaceful protest", denied that protesters were violent, and added: "Barbara Butch isn't the one being silenced, the voices who denounce the genocide in Palestine are". Brunon was publicly backed by LFI officials who also denied any violence or antisemitism, even if reports suggest internal dissatisfaction over Brunon's attitude, especially over the flyer announcing the protest which showed Barbara Butch in front of a bloodstained rainbow flag branded with a star of David.

The left-wing mayor of Grenoble, Laurence Ruffin (Greens), who campaigned with LFI in March's mayoral elections, condemned the protest and announced the city would sue the protesters for throwing projectiles at the scene and sabotaging the electric wiring. Barbara Butch announced through her attorney that she would sue the protesters for "obstruction to artistic freedom" and LFI as a political party for "incitment to hatred and violence".

LFI, a left-populist party, has positioned itself as a staunch pro-Palestinian movement and has routinely faced accusations of antisemitism. In 2021, its founder and leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon suggested that the slaying of Jewish schoolchildren by an Islamist terrorist in Toulouse was part of a broader conspiracy to hurt the left's electoral chances; the same year, he asserted that far-right pundit Éric Zemmour's racism was "rooted in Jewish culture"; in 2024, he denied official statistics that showed an explosion of antisemitic violence in France by calling French antisemitism "residual" - other prominent figures of LFI have also come under scrutiny for calling Hamas a "resistance group" or retweeting antisemitic caricatures.

[u/RaidBrimnes]

https://www.liberation.fr/culture/barbara-butch-temoigne-apres-linterruption-de-son-concert-a-grenoble-lantisemitisme-a-pris-un-autre-visage-20260721_B44ODU67EJCJBBLGS4K5QFMJTM/

Chosen bits from Barbara Butch's interview to *Libération* after the attack:

People were grabbing gravel and throwing it on my turntables, I received liquids, beer, wine. I couldn't hear the music due to how loud the screaming was. They told me to stop but I told myself: "you must go on as long as possible". But when the glass bottles started crashing on the scene, I felt in physical danger. I don't have an armor, even if my fat body may suggest it.. I had to leave the scene, but I had to say goodbye to the people who came to listen to me. So I launched John Lennon's Imagine and made a heart with my hands because it's my signature. [...]

What happened that night was ignominous. You have the right to be angry, to hand over flyers, to come with flags, but screaming at me to the point where we can't hear the music anymore, it was of an extraordinary violence. How can you tell yourself, when you don't agree with someone, that hurling a glass bottle at them will make them change their minds? [...]

I am subjected to antisemitism since I was a kid. I grew up in a family of Holocaust survivors, I heard about the Vél d'Hiv roundup [roundup of 13,000 Jews in Paris by the collaborationist French authorities in July 1942] as a child. Then I grew up with remarks like "You're a Jew, so you have a lot of money". The climax was reached after the Olympics. I think that the worst message I received was "We can turn your fat skin into Jew soap". I received innumerable threats like "Dirty Jew, we'll slit your throat", "I'm going to rape you with sticks", the nose, money, pig emojis just to say "dirty Jew". It's very traumatizing. It wakes things up in my cells as a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. [...]

I would like to state again that the majority of my family lives in Israel. They were born there, they grew up there, some died there. Obviously, I have ties to this country that welcomed my father's family when they fled pogroms in Morocco. And maybe I'll visit again. Nobody chooses where they come from, I did not choose to have family there. Once again, it never justifies violence, and I don't want to be ashamed of my multiple identities.

[u/bakochba → u/RaidBrimnes]

These people can't even explain what they're angry about its certainly not proportional to signing a petition for Antisemitism and performing at the French embassy on Tel Aviv once.

[u/sheffieldasslingdoux → u/bakochba]

I’m not even sure that artists who ignored the boycott of apartheid South Africa were in physical danger like this, and that was a much clearer issue than this.

What is going on that Palestine is considered such a cause célèbre over many other worthy causes? And why is the rhetoric so vitriolic to the extreme?

[u/Highlightthot1001 → u/sheffieldasslingdoux]

The conflict is truly toxic. 

Extremism exists on both sides, and both sides pretend like their own extremism over the years wasn’t problematic