Europe 1 with AFP // Credits: KRISTY SPAROW / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP 5:16 p.m., February 15, 2024

The ban on the Freeze Corleone concert in Lille was validated this Thursday by the administrative court of the Northern prefecture. The artist sees his performance canceled because it represents "a risk of disturbance to public order sufficiently established so that the ban pronounced by the prefect of the North does not seriously undermine freedom of expression", according to the institution. 

Administrative justice validated Thursday the ban on a concert in Lille by the controversial rapper Freeze Corleone, targeted by an investigation for "apology of terrorism", while a decision is expected for the concert planned in Lyon on Saturday. The administrative court of Lille judged "the risk of disturbances to public order (...) sufficiently established so that the ban pronounced by the prefect of the North does not pose a serious and manifestly illegal attack on freedom of expression ", according to a press release issued by the institution.

The court notes that "several titles that Freeze Corleone was to perform during his concert include calls for violence which are likely to incite hatred or discrimination against named persons." Seized in summary proceedings, he recalled that, in the past, the rapper did not respect commitments made before the administrative justice not to sing certain songs. “We are making a disparate sampling of comments that can shock the bourgeoisie,” the rapper's lawyer, Sanjay Mirabeau, protested at the hearing Thursday morning, just a few hours before the concert scheduled for 8 p.m. at the city's Zenith. After the decision, he announced that he was going to refer the matter to the Council of State, despite the short time remaining before the start of the concert. 

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“I prefer to be accused of anti-Semitism…”, rapper Freeze Corleone sparks controversy again

At the beginning of the afternoon, a second summary hearing, this time in Lyon, contested the ban by the Rhône prefecture of a concert announced on Saturday at the Tony-Garnier hall. The two prefectures consider that the lyrics of several Freeze Corleone songs contain “openly anti-Semitic remarks marked with admiration for the person of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich”.

They also highlight comments "apologizing" for terrorism, through a reference to the Nice attack of July 14, 2016 on the Promenade des Anglais, which left 86 dead and hundreds injured. "Burberry like an English grandfather. I come into rap like a truck bombing hard on the...", sings Freeze Corleone in "Haaland", a duet with German rapper Luciano, released last week . Words which led to the opening of a preliminary investigation in Nice for advocating terrorism.

“Not a thought leader”

Me Sanjay was annoyed at the hearing that we were “trying to ask ourselves what the artist, by saying nothing, wanted to suggest in the mind of the public”. He assured that “Haaland” would not be sung in Lille. His client, real name Issa Lorenzo Diakhate, followed by hundreds of thousands of people on social networks, is a singer, not an “opinion leader”, he argued. He argued that an artist has the right to interpret whatever character he wants. “We have all attended concerts where an artist leaves his audience the choice to finish his sentence,” pointed out the prefect’s chief of staff, Christophe Borgus, emphasizing the risk of “terrorist proselytism.”

A group of young people in possession of tickets for this concert attended the audience. The spectators of Freeze Corleone "are not people who follow him as a preacher of good political thought", assured one of them, Arthur Lyon-Caen, 18 years old. During the hearing in Lyon, another lawyer for the rapper, Adrien Chartron, stressed that his client had "not been the subject of any criminal conviction and (that) all of his concerts had not posed any disturbance of public order”.

In 2020, Freeze Corleone had already been the subject of an investigation, ultimately closed, for "incitement to racial hatred" after clips containing lyrics such as "I arrive determined like Adolf in the 30s" or "every day RAF (nothing to worry about) the Shoah". In recent months, several prefectures have banned his concerts. Administrative justice allowed two dates to be held at the Zénith in Paris in November, but validated the ban on another concert near Nantes in December.

The latter is currently postponed to February 28, pending a decision from the Council of State. This same Council of State ended up authorizing the rapper to perform in Rennes last March, despite another ban.