The Medina controversy continues. The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, one of the representatives of the left wing of the macronie, asked Friday, August 11, La France insoumise (LFI) and Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) to distance themselves from the rapper, guest star of their next summer universities and who is again accused of anti-Semitism.

“I will always fight the far right. You are precisely playing the game with this unworthy invitation, “said Clément Beaune to LFI and the leader of the environmentalist party, Marine Tondelier. “It’s time to come to your senses,” added the minister on X (Twitter), calling one of the rapper’s last messages on the same network “despicable”.

“Formula not suitable”

In this post published on Thursday, Médine describes the Franco-Gambian artist and essayist Rachel Khan as “resKHANpée”, namely a “person who has been thrown out of the hip-hop space, drifting among social traitors and eating in the literal sense of the table of the far right”. Message to which Rachel Khan, Jewish and granddaughter of a deportee, reacted on X with: “All is said”, leading to a flood of comments on the anti-Semitic character of the pun invented by the rapper.

“No ambiguity. I attacked the professional career of Rachel Khan. The unsuitable formula, which must certainly have offended people and I apologize for that, was not directed to his family or to the victims of the tragedy of the Holocaust, ”he then posted on Friday on X.

This new incident reinforces the smell of sulfur surrounding Medina’s invitation to the LFI and EELV summer universities at the end of August. Since the announcement of his arrival by the national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier, voices have been raised to accuse the artist of anti-Semitism, homophobia, communitarianism and acquaintances with Islamism, in the light of certain past interviews, songs or positions.

“The question of the fight against intolerance (…) necessarily passes through people who did not know and who open their eyes, who deconstruct themselves, become aware, who recognize past mistakes, who move forward,” said Ms. Tondelier on Friday with from Agence France-Presse, claiming to have “fairly frank exchanges” with the rapper.

The one who grew up in Le Havre has always denied being anti-Semitic or having links with Islamism, without going back on his most criticized gestures or statements. In one of his last interviews, with the anti-capitalist magazine Ballast dated July 15, the artist opposes all forms of discrimination, calling for “social justice”, the fight against “the extreme right” and the end of the “mechanisms of oppression that affect both LGBT populations, racialized people, feminists”.