Paris, 24 March 2023

Dr Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Centre’s Director for International Relations, recalled his conversation with French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, regarding her father’s Jewish family and her plan to fight antisemitism and all forms of hate.

Dear Madam,

We call on you to take measures against the so-called “Freeze Corleone”, whose appearance at last week’s rap festival in Rennes was applauded by thousands of young spectators.

Former CRIF (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) President, Dr Richard Prasquier, presented the dangerous effects of claiming this event as a mere example of “freedom of expression”.

Corleone’s songs included the following quotes: “I arrive determined like Adolf in the 1930s,” “Every day I don’t give a F... about the Shoah,” “For my family to live like rich Jews every day, F... Israel as if in Gaza,” “I'm in Dakar [his father’s home] and you’re in your centre in Zion,” “Too many Cohens, against them stands the courage and bravery of the 3rd Reich.”

Prasquier mentions Freeze Corleone’s adulation for American Jew-hater, black supremacist and “Nation of Islam” cleric, Louis Farrakhan.

Madam Prime Minister, the Mayor of Rennes, Nathalie Appéré, had threatened to ban the concert. Her position was objected by an Administrative Court, followed by the Council of State, which decided it was “not retaining her claim of disorder to the public” created by the presence of the rapper at the concert.

Corleone’s Nazi remarks provoke the warped idea that “the Jews, by their insistence on the Holocaust, are responsible for the oblivion of slavery.”

Madam Prime Minister, we urge you to act on the issue of Corleone, in the same manner as for his predecessors in Jew-hatred, such as Dieudonné, and the British rocker Roger Waters.

We suggest that France lead the way to deal with such hatemongers through the European Court of Human Rights.

Most Respectfully,

Dr Shimon Samuels

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