PARIS – A grandiose, nearly epic present within the endurance race towards the rain of dancers, artists and athletes, maybe a bit lengthy and kitsch in some locations, however which gave the world a significant and transgressive portrait of France. An excessive amount of for the far proper and a few extra reactionary intellectuals who started to assault the inauguration present of the Video games. The inventive director Thomas Jolly, an acclaimed forty-four-year-old theatre director, had promised “audacity”, and so it was. To speak about variety and inclusiveness he imagined drag queens posing for the Final Supper: “In France we’ve the appropriate to like one another as we would like, with whoever we would like, in France we’ve the appropriate to consider and to not consider. In France we’ve many rights”, he mentioned, affirming that “these had been republican concepts, of inclusion, benevolence, generosity and solidarity”.
Paris celebrates alongside the Seine: rain and lights for the opening ceremony. Macron booed
from our correspondent Anais Ginori
Nakamura, the star hated by the French far proper
To commemorate the French Revolution, a beheaded Marie Antoinette appeared on the Conciergerie, the place the final Queen had been imprisoned. To sing the Marseillaise, a black mezzo soprano from Guadeloupe appeared on the prime of the Grand Palais. As an instance égalité, equality, she despatched the enemy of the acute proper, the Franco-Malian star Aya Nakamura, onto the Pont des Arts catwalk.
Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement Nationwide, which had already criticized the thought of placing Nakamura within the present, is up in arms, sparking a hate marketing campaign on social media towards the Malian artist. “We’re in Paris, not on the Bamako market” was written just a few months in the past on a banner of the far-right group, Les Natifs. “She is a singer who does not communicate French” Le Pen commented concerning the artist who has offered greater than one million copies of her album “Nakamura”.
“It’s unacceptable to assault an artist for what she is,” Emmanuel Macron had responded, denouncing the racism of the far proper. Right here is Nakamura in entrance of the Académie Française, very sensual within the rain, in a gold costume, accompanied by the Garde Républicaine band, the indignation of essentially the most reactionary exploded.
“What a disgrace! The opening of the Olympic Video games is a spoil for French tradition,” mentioned RN spokesman Julien Odoul. The artist carried out a medley of her most well-known songs, paid homage to Charles Aznavour with “For me Formidable,” and ended with a navy salute, a message to her critics. Backstage, the 29-year-old star posed smiling with the Republican Guard. “It was maybe an unlikely assembly between two worlds, but it surely went very effectively,” Frédéric Foulquier, director of the navy band, now confides.
One other second that didn’t go unnoticed was the tableau that within the script was entitled “Festivité”: the picture of a gaggle of well-known drag queens on the desk (Nicky Doll, Paloma and Piche, recognizable by his blond beard), which recalled Leonardo’s portray of the Final Supper of Jesus along with his apostles. Led by the French DJ Barbara Butch, a feminist and lesbian activist, a number of fashions, together with the transgender Raya Martigny, then paraded on the catwalk. Marion Maréchal, niece of the chief of the RN and elected with Eric Zemmour’s celebration, lashed out towards the present that she manufacturers as “woke propaganda”, from the title of the American mental motion for the protection of minorities. «
To all of the Christians on the planet who’re watching the ceremony and felt insulted by this parody of the Final Supper made by a drag queen, know that it isn’t France talking, however a left-wing minority prepared for any provocation”. The bishops’ convention issued an announcement to lament a ceremony that “sadly included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity”, solely to then applaud “fantastic moments of magnificence and pleasure, wealthy in emotion and universally acclaimed”. Matteo Salvini was extra categorical. “Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians on the planet was actually a horrible begin, expensive French. Squalid”. However France can also be the nation that first abolished the crime of blasphemy, and secularism is sacred, and the place “marriage for all” has existed for nearly ten years and civil unions for greater than twenty.
Shortly earlier than, within the tableau “Liberté”, the inventive director – who confessed to having been stalked as a teen due to his homosexuality – offered “a Paris the place need asserts itself and expresses itself”, in a rainbow-colored dance and two males kissing. What received everybody to agree had been Girl Gaga together with her fuchsia feathers and her homage to Zizi Jeanmaire, and the ultimate efficiency by Céline Dion, “resurrected” on the Eiffel Tower after 4 years of sickness and absence from the scene, in an exhilarating interpretation of “Hymne à l’amour”. Edith Piaf had written the lyrics to this track after the demise in a aircraft crash of her lover, the boxer Marcel Cerdan. “I used to be completely satisfied to rejoice these unimaginable athletes,” mentioned Dion, “with all their tales of sacrifice and willpower, ache and perseverance.”
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– 2024-07-28 13:17:49
