At trial over banner targeting Aya Nakamura, far-right activists stand by their actions
On March 8, 2024, as rumors swirled that Aya Nakamura would headline the Olympic Games opening ceremony, around 15 young far-right activists, members of the group Les Natifs, gathered on Île Saint-Louis in the center of Paris to unfurl a banner hostile to the French-Malian singer: "No way, Aya, this is Paris, not the Bamako market!" The slogan referenced lyrics from one of Nakamura's hits ("Djadja") and her birthplace, the Malian capital.
Heirs to the far-right group Génération Identitaire, which was dissolved in 2021, Les Natifs – who have 10,000 followers on Instagram and 19,000 on X – specialize in actions involving hostile posters and banners, often targeting immigration or promoting the defense of "European civilization." Recently, activists plastered portraits of Joan of Arc and Sainte Geneviève over images of veiled women displayed at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, in the northern Paris suburb.
Posted on their X account and viewed nearly 4.5 million times, the photo of the anti-Nakamura banner was accompanied by a short text lamenting President Emmanuel Macron's supposed plan: "To replace French elegance with vulgarity, to Africanize our popular songs, and to sideline the native population in favor of extra-European immigration." The message demanded that "France be represented by an artist embodying our heritage, our values and our identity!"
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