Medina in EELV summer days: the mayors of Bordeaux and Strasbourg cancel their visit

The rejections are starting. As controversy rages over rapper Medina’s arrival at the EELV summer universities on August 24, the green-backed mayors of Bordeaux and Strasbourg Pierre Khurmik and Jeanne Barseghian have decided not to go, AFP has learned from others.

“I begged that we could cancel the invitation of the rapper Medina, who seems to me a very controversial character,” said the mayor of Strasbourg Zhanna Barseghyan (EELV) into a BFMTV microphone. “That’s why I’ve made the decision not to go to Environmental Summer Days this year,” she confirms.

Bordeaux mayor Pierre Hurmik’s (EELV) entourage justified the decision, “particularly related to the controversy” following a tweet targeting Jewish essayist Rachel Hahn, granddaughter of the deportees, qualified as “resKHANpée”.

“ResKHANpée: someone who has been thrown out of the hip-hop square, drifting among social traitors and literally eating at the table of the far right,” wrote X Médine, quoting Rachel Khan’s tweet. The rapper then assured that his tweet “does not contain hints of any origin or family history.”

EELV split over rapper’s arrival

On August 11, the artist insisted that there was no anti-Semitic nature in his statements addressed to Rachel Khan. “No ambiguity. I attacked Rachel Hahn’s career path. The inappropriate wording, which certainly should have offended people, and I apologize for that, was not directed at his family or at the victims of the tragedy of the Holocaust (…) The fight against anti-Semitism, against Islamophobia and all forms of discrimination deserves more than anathemas on Twitter,” wrote Medin on the social network.

Within days, the controversy surrounding Medina’s arrival at the EELV Summer Universities grew and divided the European ecology of the Greens. Several party leaders or figures openly opposed his invitation, such as MEP Karima Delly or Noel Mamer, a historic Greens figure.