France divided over Israeli orchestra visit amid Gaza war

A visit to Paris by Israel’s leading orchestra has triggered political controversy in France, as a major cultural workers’ union condemned the event over Israel’s actions in Gaza, The New Arab and agencies reported on November 4th.

The country’s culture minister Rachida Dati defended the event as a moment of “sharing and communication”. The CGT Spectacle union, representing entertainment industry workers, on October 29th criticised the planned performance of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, scheduled to take place on November 6th at the Paris Philharmonic Hall. While it stopped short of calling for a boycott, the union argued the concert could not be separated from what it described as Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza.

“The Paris Philharmonic Hall cannot host the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra without reminding the public of the extremely serious accusations weighing on the leaders of that country (Israel) or the nature of the crime committed in Gaza,” the union said in a statement. It also said that it considered the concert an attempt to promote the “normalisation” of Israel in global cultural settings.

In response, the Paris Philharmonic Hall released a statement on November 3rd, saying that it hoped that the event would proceed “in the best possible conditions.” It emphasised that visiting artists were never required to “take a position… on the issue of ongoing conflicts or on sensitive political stakes.”

Dati posted on X: “Welcome to Israel’s national orchestra. Nothing justifies a boycott call for this moment of culture, sharing and communication. Freedom of creation and programming is a value of our republic. (There is) no pretext for antisemitism.”

Dati, a centre-right politician serving in President Emmanuel Macron’s government, is facing legal troubles, having been ordered to stand trial on corruption and influence-peddling charges.

The controversy comes amid intense global criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, launched in retaliation against Hamas’s October 2023 attacks, which killed 1,221 people, according to Israeli figures. The subsequent Israeli offensive has killed over 68,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose data is deemed credible by the UN.

UN investigators have accused Israel of committing genocide, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an International Court of Justice (ICJ) arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A U.S.-brokered truce is theoretically in place, but tensions remain high across Europe over Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the cultural world’s response to it. The Paris concert seems to have become a flashpoint in France’s broader debate over art, politics, and freedom of expression.

The New Arab and agencies, Maghrebi.org