PORTRAIT – The surprise presence of the Franco-Moroccan comedian within Emmanuel Macron’s delegation in Rabat sparked numerous criticisms. At 42, he became famous for his political positions. And his legal convictions.
The images of Yassine Belattar and Sébastien Lecornu, exchanging a hug during the arrival of the presidential procession in Morocco on Tuesday, during Emmanuel Macron’s state visit, immediately triggered a controversy. Many observers were offended to see the Minister of the Armed Forces discussing with the controversial 42-year-old comedian, sentenced last year to four months in prison for death threats. A comedian who no longer makes people laugh, even in the entourage of the Head of State. His arrival on the Rabat tarmac, in a tracksuit, was seen as a provocation from Emmanuel Macron. Even if, for the latter, questioned by the press, this presence is only an “anecdote”.
If Sébastien Lecornu made it known through his entourage that they “didn’t know each other”, the comedian claimed the opposite. « I met him (Lecorn, Editor’s note) repeatedly »he declared to BFMTV Tuesday evening, before defending his presence alongside the Head of State for this official trip to Morocco, claiming to be « French and Moroccan artist ». It must be said that Yassine Belattar has been in the Elysian orbit for a long time. Emmanuel Macron appointed him in 2018 to the Presidential Council of Cities (now the National Council of Cities). Made up of around twenty people from the neighborhoods (artists, associations, entrepreneurs, etc.), the body is intended to feed the executive’s thinking on priority neighborhoods. The Franco-Moroccan host resigned in 2019, after a short year in office. The reason? He could not stand the comments of Jean-Michel Blanquer, then Minister of National Education, who did not judge “not desirable” the Islamic veil in France.
If Yassine Belattar remains classified as a “comedian”, his career has long taken a strange turn. Towards political activism, making this child of Mureaux, as he likes to remind us, a figure that could not be more divisive. And even more so since the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023. « We are the world’s laughing stock for the media treatment of Muslims and one day it will be like seeing an extreme right coming to power. »he declared in a message on Instagram following the attacks. In another publication, he asserts, without nuance, that « hatred of Muslims has become the entry ticket for Parisian sets and salons ». In a video interview given to Rapunchline, published in December 2023, he supports Guillaume Meurice after his comments regarding Benjamin Netanyahu.
A joker, a self-proclaimed loudmouth, his appearances on TV sets are always noticed, such as in October 2021 where he calls Éric Naulleau a “fascist”, in the show “Balance ton post!” », presented by Cyril Hanouna. In the Rapunchline video, the comedian claims not to prepare his interventions on set: « I don’t need to learn the subject. I am the subject. (…) I no longer want to be the boss on duty. My thing is to show that the fascists have taken power. »
One controversy always precedes another with Yassine Belattar. Despite his conviction in September 2023, to four months of suspended imprisonment after death threats and crimes targeting personalities from the entertainment world, he was received two months later at the Élysée. The information revealed by L’Express is then confirmed by Le Figaro. The interview takes place a few days before the big march against anti-Semitism on Sunday, November 12, in which the president ultimately did not participate. Is it because Yassine Belattar dissuaded him? The question remains open…
Marine Le Pen, Éric Ciotti and Éric Zemmour have all denounced the idea that such a controversial figure could have the ear of the Élysée. In March 2018, Manuel Valls was in turn alarmed by this proximity. The former prime minister also states on the set of BFMTV that the proximity between Yassine Belattar and the Sunni Islamist organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is not « not a secret ». Response from the interested party: “He’s the bullfighter, I’m not the bull! He’s all alone! And he’s super upset because I told him – and I’m telling him again here – that the most French of the two of us is me! I was born in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine and I have only known France. He arrived here at 18, he didn’t even know how to conjugate the verb “to be”.” A reference to the youth of Manuel Valls, who was born in Barcelona in 1962, to a Spanish father and a Swiss mother, before being naturalized in 1982
“I am a French and Moroccan artist”
Born in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), of Moroccan parents, Yassine Belattar became known to the public in the mid-2000s. Particularly on the radio where he started « like a guy from the suburbs, who lives with my parents in l’Étang-la-ville, in Les Mureaux ». « I’ve been doing radio since I was ten years old. I send a model to Génération 88.2, Ado FM for the youngest, Nova and Beur FM. And it’s Generation that gives me my chance »he adds to the Rapunchline microphone. He begins by doing the horoscope under the name “DJ Chelou”, before presenting the news flashes. Before finding himself propelled to the head of the morning show, in which he opens the antenna to « people from the neighborhoods ». His show on his Parisian branch gained momentum during the riots in the suburbs which broke out in 2005 after the death of two teenagers trying to escape the police. His commitment, he declares, « comes from there ».
FRANCK FIFE / AFP
Having become a comedian and participating in several shows, Yassine Belattar then worked for television shows like Le Belattar Show on France 4, or the Mouv’ morning show in 2010. He also works for Comédie + or Radio Nova. In 2017, after a portrait against the magazine Marianne Yassine Belattar claims that several dates of his show have been canceled in France. The author of the article describes having attended a performance of his show Unmanageable and affirms that Yassine Belattar declared there: « I’m not Charlie, I’m not Nice. I have the right to choose my mourning. » Journalists and Internet users who attended the show accused the weekly of having distorted its remarks.
The same year, Belattar was the first comedian to perform on the Bataclan stage since the terrorist attacks of 2015, with François Hollande in the audience. Upon his arrival, the former President of the Republic explained to a journalist from Huffingtonpost that he had done « this promise to those who run the Bataclan. (…) If I come, it is not accidental, it is because I know the person who is in this show today [Yassine Belattar, NDLR]. (…) For a whole period before the 2012 presidential election, he supported me. And he continued to do so throughout my tenure ».
Since 2020, Emmanuel Macron’s embarrassing friend has been performing in France with his second show On the Marginsin which he “does not avoid any divisive subject” according to Telerama . From his custody following a police altercation in 2018 to the march against Islamophobia with the CCIF, including his collaboration with Emmanuel Macron on the Presidential Council of Cities. In September 2022, he goes on stage for the first time in Morocco, in Casablanca. Yassine Belattar explains a few weeks before in a video on the Yabiladi TV channel, putting the brakes on his career in France. « My life is in danger (…). Being a Muslim in France equals danger »he adds.
In another interview for the Moroccan news channel H24Info.ma, he said: « France has a multitude of immigrants that you can find in our national football team, and suddenly, in view of successive economic crises, we decide to evoke the idea that a part of the French, of which I am a part, are responsible for all the ills of the country : terrorism, ecology, unemployment. » After declaring his love for the Moroccan people, he talks about his desire to invest more of his money in projects in Morocco and « to make the French-speaking world shine ». On the political side, he admitted another ambition for the country where his parents were born, that « to have Morocco apply for the Olympic Games ».
In 2024, he resumes his last show in France. One of his performances in April in Romans-sur-Isère, a town administered by the various right-wing mayor Marie-Hélène Thoraval, was canceled. The town hall then invokes “an imponderable event”, “an emergency intervention in theater”. According to newspaper information The Dauphiné Libéré the municipality would rather have deplored its propensity to make “promotion of Islamism” et “his connections with the Muslim Brotherhood”. After a final date at the Bataclan scheduled for June 15, 2024, Yassine Belattar announces that she is finishing this show, or even the stage. But it will remain “sulphurous. What he also claims bluntly: “Sulfureux, it’s my middle name! »