There would be so much to say about the rapper Médine that the indictment of Nicolas Bay for defamatory remarks about him leaves a little speechless. At the origin of the complaint, a campaign document distributed by the regional elected representative and deputy to the European Parliament in March 2021 in which he criticized the subsidy of 18,000 euros granted by Hervé Morin, president of the Normandy region, for the promotion of a certain Medina whom the same tract described as “close to the Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood”. Nicolas Bay (ex-RN who has since gone to Reconquest), whom we contacted by telephone, declares: “This individual has also been an ambassador for the Havre de savoir association since 2012, which praises Hassan el-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Qaradawi, an intellectual leader who legitimized suicide attacks. In addition, he displays his hatred for our country in his songs “Crucify the secularists as in Golgotha” (Don’t Laikreleased in 2015) or “These white pigs go far/Give me a handgun” (Angle of attack, 2011). » The truth obliges us to reveal the continuation of the poem which continues thus: “I’m going to make one less pedophile…”
Words that are not exactly those of an altar boy. However, the one that bears the name of one of the holy cities of Islam has not always had bad press. Elected personality of his hometown, Le Havre, by Normandy News in 2014, he was then considered as “much more than an artist, someone committed to several solidarity causes”who pursues “almost a political commitment”. His support for Tariq Ramadan, who “allowed him not to fall into radicalism”and whose demonization he regrets because, “without him, and others, we would be on a real powder keg in all neighborhoods. They would be at a time when it is prey to the most radical and rigorous Islam”, does not shock many people. Médine, who feels invested with a mission that goes beyond his art, handles rap like a “means of popular education” and travels through the schools of Le Havre, sports clubs and local associations to “to talk about the religious fact, the situation of Muslims in a context”. Better than that: in 2017, it goes downright in history. Or rather in his textbooks, chapter “Algerian War” for senior ES, gallantly invited by Éditions Nathan who printed one of his texts there.
The controversy that arises from the programming of two of his concerts planned at the Bataclan in 2018 to commemorate the memory of the victims darkens the wings of the angel. Several personalities on the left and on the right, from Caroline Fourest to Marine Le Pen via Laurent Wauquiez or Aurore Bergé, violently protest by exhuming the words of his songs like “Jihad” and “Don’t Laïk”. The opposition is such that the concerts are canceled. But Aurore Bergé will also receive a defamation complaint from the failed. We are awaiting the indictment of MP LREM…
By multiplying the complaints against its detractors, Medina thus hopes “to make case law with these cases so that artists, researchers, associations, sportsmen, journalists who are insulted by Islamists (sic) or Islamo-leftists can, through my case, sue all those who try to discredit and smear their work”. What indeed improve the soil of French culture.
This indictment of Nicolas Bay is only an insignificant step and which still says nothing about the substance of the case. Because the law is so made that any individual targeted by a defamation complaint is automatically indicted. An automaticity criticized, moreover, by certain jurists who see it as a “gag procedure” dangerous for freedom of expression, likely to paralyze a good number of whistleblowers who do not have sufficient means to ensure their defense. Not to mention that in the eyes of the public, the media echo of the announcement of an indictment counts much more than the final court decision which will no longer interest anyone months or years later.
Not enough to start the combativeness and serenity of a Nicolas Bay, who tells us “waiting impatiently for his trial to be able to show the very numerous proofs which justify my remarks”. For him, “This affair is very revealing of the levity, the naivety, the cowardice of the public authorities with regard to the Islamist movement. In the name of a certain idea of diversity, and for years, local communities have been subsidizing anti-French and anti-republican lyrics. »
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