An investigation was opened by the Nice prosecutor’s office this Saturday, July 8 after the artist mentioned a lynching of the President during a concert on Thursday.
Between two songs and while we tune the guitars, a violent monologue against Emmanuel Macron. Evoking the Head of State during his concert Thursday July 6 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer (Alpes-Maritimes) at the Les Nuits Guitars festival, the artist Izïa Higelin delivered a long tirade, imagining how Emmanuel Macron could be publicly lynched by the spectators. What motivate the opening of an investigation by the Nice prosecutor’s office for “public provocation to commit a crime or misdemeanour”.
“It is the territorial brigade of the gendarmerie of Beaulieu-sur-Mer and the research brigade” which are seized of the investigation, added the prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme, confirming an initial information of Nice morning and specifying that the investigation did not result from a complaint. Beaulieu Mayor Roger Roux, who was not present at the concert and arrived at the venue around midnight, told Nice morning that the gendarmes intended to arrest the artist but that they were unable to do so: “She would have been exfiltrated on her bus. The regulations mean that you can’t go in like that. There were long discussions between the manager and the gendarmerie,” adds the mayor of Beaulieu.
“A giant human pinata”
What did the singer say on stage Thursday night? “I know him, what a naughty one, he said to himself there, which would be good, I think what the people want, what the people want, is that they hang on me at 20 meters from the ground like a giant human pinata, and that we are all here with huge bats with nails on the end like in Clockwork Orange [Orange mécanique, ndlr]», began to tell the 32-year-old singer about Emmanuel Macron.
Before continuing, swaying in front of the public, on a musical background, as can be seen on a video posted on the site and the TikTok account of the cultural magazine inout Côte d’Azur. “And there we’d bring him down, but with all the grace and kindness that the southern people have, there right above you, and we’d all have our bats with our little nails, and in a sparkler of joy, of living flesh and blood, we would put him on the ground, but gently, you see…”, continue Izia.
“I already see the headline of Nice morning tomorrow: Izïa calls for the murder of Macron”, would then have quipped the singer according to the regional daily. always in Nice morning, Marie-José Lasry, the deputy mayor of Beaulieu in charge of Culture, who attended the concert, returned to this exit of the singer, stressing that “Friends left outraged. And I was very annoyed. I wondered if I should get her fired. Especially since people continued to applaud and dance as if nothing had happened. As of Friday morning, Marie-José Lasry said to have testified to the gendarmerie. An incident which is now worth to the singer to be, according to the deputy mayor, “blacklisted” of the city of the Alpes-Maritimes.