Bilal Hassani on France 5: "Let him sing and dance, in freedom!"

Bruno Donnet 09:47, 06 April 2023

Every day, Bruno Donnet tracks down the strong sequences of the media agenda. This Wednesday evening, he was very touched by the passage of Bilal Hassani on the set of C à Vous.

This boy managed, very simply, to solve a media equation, yet always infinitely complicated: how to properly calibrate a response to perfectly filthy attacks?

But before we begin, we must first summarize the case to all those from whom it would have escaped.

Bilal Hassani is a young boy. He is just 23 years old. He is of Moroccan origin and he became known five years ago thanks to his YouTube channel and social networks. What for? Well, because Bilal has two little peculiarities: He likes boys and he wears wigs.

That's all.

But the simple fact of being gay and saying it with a girl's wig, placed on his head, arouses, since he began his appearances on the internet, mockery, insults and harassment of hordes of trolls who come to get him lice in the hairpiece, to the point that when he was still only 19 years old, Bilal had been forced to post them a small message of appeasement: "For all the people who take too much head, to try to put me in a box (...) Stop and start looking bigger, like a big wheat field where everyone lives together. »

Since then, Bilal Hassani has started singing. He defended the colors of the France at Eurovision in 2019, with this title: "When I dream I am a king. When I dream, I am a king! »

And he continues, today, his career as a singer with wig: "You're not a real guy. You're too girl! »

Yesterday, the young Bilal had planned to start a concert tour. He was to perform in Metz, in the basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonains, a church that for more than 500 years has been deconsecrated, that is to say that mass is no longer celebrated there, since it has been transformed into an exhibition and concert hall.

But here, the scheduled arrival of the singer with false long hair, did not please a small fringe of traditionalist Catholics of the extreme right who threatened to sabotage his performance, to attack him and his audience and who posted this message on social networks: "In our time where there is a wind of disenchantment, Where the storm of wokism blows one by one the pillars of our civilization, it is vital to erect without further delay the strongest barricades against this societal cancer. »

This is then the alleged "societal cancer", it is of course the homosexuality of the young Bilal, whose concert was finally canceled, under pressure and in the face of the threat posed to the organization by these homophobic activists.

Suddenly, deprived of concert, Bilal Hassani was invited, last night, by France 5, on the set of C à Vous.

Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine of course asked him to react to the attacks of those who, in a leaflet, accused him of blasphemy and pornography: "I do not make pornography, I sing, I make music, I dance, I sing on stage and that has always been."

So Bilal tried to answer with words. But his silences and hesitations reflected his discouragement:

Bilal was eventually invited to sing. And there, blonde wig, always proudly screwed on his head, the young boy responded probably in the most intelligent way, to all the homophobes he defines.

He covered a hit, sung by Dalida. Dalida, a huge performer, who also became a gay icon: "Let me dance, let me. Let me dance, sing freely, all summer."

What if, indeed, we finally give peace to this young boy who claims, quite simply, that we let him be who he is, that we let him sing and dance in freedom.