The trio of Ireland of the North, Kneecap, one of the members of which he is prosecuted by the British justice for Hezbollah, gave this Sunday, August 24, a concert under a close surveillance at the Rock Festival in Seine, where Israeli policy in Gaza again criticized.
This one-hour concert was held in front of several thousand people in Saint-Cloud (west of Paris), preceded by a controversy over their outfit because this group of Belfast has become accustomed to making its shows a forum for the Palestinian cause in the context of the war in the Gaza Strip.
“Free Palestine, free!” Thus he shouted at the beginning and at the end of his program, the group, whose music ranges between rap and punk, by Arangar to an enthusiastic crowd where Keffiehs and Irish shirts were visible.
“We are not against Israel,” he said also, he added: “I know we are angry, but we are only here to have fun.”
“A war criminal”
During his show, Kneecap still mentioned the situation several times in the Middle East: “Netanyahu is a war criminal” and “if you call it genocide, what are you calling this?” He said in particular.
The authorities warned that they were going to have this concert in the eye. One of the three members of the group, Liam O’Hanna Dit Mo Chara, is prosecuted for “terrorist crime” after having covered, during a concert in London in 2024, of a Hezbollah flag. This Pro-Iranni Lebanese movement, a jury enemy of Israel, is a terrorist classified in the United Kingdom.
With the support of hundreds of followers, Mo Chara appeared on Wednesday in the British capital and then left, the decision was postponed on September 26.
These judicial adventures do not prevent Kneecap from continuing his tour of the closed window, as in Glastonbury at the end of June, where he accused Israel of being a “war criminal” state. On the other hand, he was deprived of the Sziget festival in Budapest, after the prohibition of entry to the territory provided by the Hungarian government, near Israel.
Subsidies retired by the city and the region
“We are sure that the group will remain completely correctly,” Matthieu Ducos, rock director in Seine had explained to the AFP a few days before the festival.
“It is a group that remains relatively confidential in France but has won a lot in notoriety lately, for very good artistic reasons, but also all this controversy that made it gain greatly in visibility and fans,” he added.
In this context, the city of Saint-Cloud withdrew its subsidy of 40,000 euros to rock in Seine, the first.
The Ile-De-France region has also canceled its help for the 2025 edition. The subsidy amounted to 295,000 euros in 2024, to which 150,000 euros are added in indirect aid through the purchase of tickets.
However, the disconnection of these communities does not imply the feasibility of the festival, whose budget is between 16 and 17 million euros this year.
Three concerts in France this summer
In France, the “ball articulation” in English, in English, the reference to the practice of paramilitary militias that led to their victims’ knees during the northern Ireland conflict, has already occurred twice this summer.
His concerts in the Eurockéennes of Belfort in early July and the Green Cabaret in Charleville-Mézières in mid-August took place without incident, but votes have been raised to request their deprogramming in Saint-Cloud.
“Deep the memory of the 50 French victims of Hamas on October 7 as of all the French victims of Hezbollah,” they had denounced in X Yonathan Arfi, president of the representative Council of the Jewish institutions of France (CRIF).
Source: BFM TV
