French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez is studying ways in which to ban a scheduled Kanye West concert in the Southern port city of Marseilles in June in response to the artist’s past antisemitic outbursts and pro-Nazi declarations.
Daily newspaper Libération first reported the moves to prevent the artist, now calling himself Ye, from performing in France on Tuesday morning, and other French outlets have since confirmed the report.
AFP said it had been told by sources close to the minister that he was looking at “all possibilities’ to stop the concert.
The move comes just one week after the UK government banned West from entering the country due to his antisemitic hate speech, effectively cancelling plans for him to headline London’s Wireless Festival in July.
The festival was then cancelled within hours of the decision being made public.
West is currently due to perform on June 11 at the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille.
The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, had already declared his opposition to West’s performance on social media in late March.
“I refuse to let Marseille be a showcase for those who promote hatred and unashamed Nazism. Kanye West is not welcome at the Vélodrome, our temple of living together and of all that is Marseillais,” he wrote on X.
Elsewhere in Europe, West is also due to perform in the Netherlands on June 6 and 8 at the GelreDome Stadium in Arnhem, as well as in Madrid at the end of July.
These performances have been maintained for now.
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