A few days before the legislative elections, several hundred artists and actors from the French rock scene are mobilizing in a platform “in the face of the risk of a victorious extreme right.”
“Rock and RN are radically incompatible.” 230 artists and their labels affirm this in a column published on Wednesday, June 26. The signatories trace the history of this musical genre which marked the second half of the 20th century.e century thanks to his political positions. “black and white music” who did “shake segregationist America” to support for Nelson Mandela, through the Beatles or the Rock Against Racism movement, the genre has always been opposed to “withdrawal into oneself”.
Among the signatories, whose number has already increased since its release on Wednesday, we find the artists Tryo, Dionysos, Shaka Ponk, Skip The Use, Sanseverino and Yarol Poupaud and 70 labels. Other artists from different genres, such as Yael Naim, have also joined this platform, as well as 22 organizations and music venues. The names of journalists Christophe Conte and Sophie Rosemont are also among around fifty media professionals. With this text, they intend to prove that it is the entire sector that is mobilizing against the National Rally, three days before the first round of the legislative elections.
After listing some major events that took place during the first decades of the musical genre, the column recalls that in the 1980s, “Rock music became synonymous with generosity and mutual aid with charity events such as Live Aid, USA For Africa, etc. (…) At the same time, rock music fought against Apartheid in South Africa and called for the release of Nelson Mandela. Those who signed the platform then call for “to stand against an ideology that goes against everything we stand for, everything we are.”
Press officer Thibault Guilhem and the magazine’s journalist Rock & Folk, Isabelle Chelley, are at the origin of this text. “During a discussion, we found it appalling the fact that the rock world does not talk about the rise of the National Rally. We said to ourselves that we had to do something”, explains Thibault Guilhem. The duo therefore chose a slogan echoing that born in the 1980s with a song by the punk group Bérurier noir: “Youth annoys the National Front.”
«The spirit of rock is still alive”
“After writing this text in two hours, we used our contacts, knowing for sure the people who would sign it. In six hours the platform has grown considerably. We try to update the number of signatories regularly, but we are a little overwhelmed, and so much the better.”he adds. “It’s reassuring to see that the spirit of rock is still alive”underlines Thibault Guilhem who is delighted with the constant increase in the number of signatories. “We will stop recording signatures next Thursday, declares the press officerthe platform must live on its own.”