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Rock En Seine Loses Funding Over Kneecap Booking
July15
The French music festival Rock En Seine has lost €40,000 in local council funding after confirming it will proceed with a scheduled performance by Northern Irish rap group Kneecap, despite controversy surrounding the group’s pro-Palestinian views.
The mayor of Saint-Cloud, where the festival is held, withdrew the funding, citing the band’s presence as incompatible with the council’s cultural funding policies.
“We subsidise cultural initiatives, not political ones,” Mayor Éric Berdoati said. “When it’s no longer in line with our objectives, we don’t fund it.”
Festival director Mathieu Ducos said the group was booked last autumn before the current controversy escalated, and he has chosen to stand by the booking. “At the time, they weren’t the talk of the town, except for good reasons,” Ducos said, expressing hope the long-standing relationship with the Saint-Cloud community won’t be undermined by the dispute.
Kneecap drew widespread attention earlier this year following a performance at Coachella, where they voiced strong support for Palestine and made statements critical of Israel. Subsequent footage showed group member Mo Chara allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a London show, leading to criminal charges in the UK.
The group’s inclusion in festival lineups has since sparked political debate in France. Valérie Pécresse, President of the Regional Council for Île-de-France, publicly called for Kneecap to be removed from French festivals while legal proceedings are ongoing. In contrast, left-wing politician Xavier Brunschvicg defended the band, arguing the backlash is tied to their stance on Gaza, and accused Berdoati of yielding to pressure from conservative constituents.
The €40,000 subsidy represents a small portion of Rock En Seine’s estimated €17 million budget, but the issue has highlighted tensions over the intersection of music, politics, and public funding. The festival is set to go ahead as planned at Parc de Saint-Cloud, just outside Paris.
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