A rock group reframes Rachida Dati who used one of her songs for her campaign for mayor of Paris

After the Jordan Bardella and Theodora episode, it’s time for Rachida Dati and Elephanz. The candidate for mayor of Paris thought she was doing the right thing by illustrating one of her campaign videos this week with a song by the French pop-rock group. At least until its two members, Jonathan and Maxime Verleysen, spotted this use for political purposes and sharply asked him to go “to draw [ses] countryside sounds elsewhere ».

The Minister of Culture shared a video on social networks in which an Ifop-Fiducial poll dating from February 22, 2026 appeared. It gave her the victory in the first round against the left-wing candidate Emmanuel Grégoire. She chose the title Time for a change from the group Elephantz to give a little life to the images. A symbolic message which shows that she presents herself as the incarnation of change after the twelve years of reign of Anne Hidalgo.

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Elephanz – Time For A Change (2013)

Visibly ” surprised “the group from the Nantes region declared on the Net that when they wrote this song, this “wasn’t really the change [qu’ils espéraient]especially in view of Rachida Dati’s recommendations for culture in France”. The piece, in fact, refers more to a personal feeling than to a desire for political change.

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No one knows if the video was published by Rachida Dati or her communications teams. The various contents relayed by political figures on social networks are generally produced by their advisors. It is therefore possible that the resigning Minister of Culture was not made aware of this choice. It’s possible because at the beginning of January, she was singled out by Internet users after her tribute to the late rapper Calbo, which did not seem to have been written by her. Some accused him of having used AI.

Rachida Dati is not the first political representative to attract the wrath of French artists. In December 2025, the singer Theodora, multi-awarded at the last Victoires de la Musique, castigated Jordan Bardella, who used her song Melodrama in a video. « I cannot understand that you, who will never consider me fully French, take advantage of my work to defend positions that I fight and with which I never wanted to be associated.she said. These practices are also reminiscent of those of Donald Trump and his administration, criticized on several occasions for having used the songs of Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter or Olivia Rodrigo in campaign videos without having consulted the rights holders.