Zaho de Sagazan challenges Emmanuel Macron on Gaza: "Don't use the words of artists if you don't act for the lives they defend"

Singer Zaho de Sagazan published a letter to Emmanuel Macron on the social network Instagram on Saturday, July 26, in which she calls out the French president for his inaction in the ongoing conflict in Gaza and asks him to stop using her works to fuel his communication.

In this text, the singer, awarded at the Victoires de la Musique in the best artist category , asks Emmanuel Macron not to use "the words of artists" if he does not act "for the lives they defend" , asks not to "decorate [his] communication with [his] songs if, moreover, [he] allows a massacre to take place" and declares: "We are not here to embellish the action."

The artist thus reproaches the French president for having "used several times" her piece La Symphonie des éclairs in his "communications" , notably on social networks . "But while you celebrate "light" , she writes, " sensitivity, compassion, under the clouds, a few kilometers from our home, children are living in hell."

A few paragraphs earlier, Zaho de Sagazan spoke of a Palestinian people "bombed, starved, humiliated by the Israeli government, now led by a far-right coalition." "A society is being erased, before the eyes of the world," she writes, while "this world looks the other way. Or worse: it justifies, relativizes, temporizes."

For her, "recognizing the Palestinian state," as Emmanuel Macron announced on July 24 , "is a necessary symbolic gesture, but it is not enough." In this publication, liked more than 60,000 times in twelve hours, she asks him for "strong and immediate action": "Demand a total ceasefire, end military cooperation, ensure that humanitarian aid, blocked for weeks by Israel, can finally pass, sanction violations of international law, support investigations into war crimes." "It's about demanding actions, not words," concludes the 25-year-old artist. "It's about finding our hearts again. Our lucidity. And our humanity."

This isn't the only act of protest in France against the ongoing actions in Gaza in recent hours. Amnesty International projected a giant message, "Stop Genocide in Gaza," onto the Olympic cauldron on Saturday evening , to "recall the tragic fate of the civilian population" in the Palestinian territory, on the first anniversary of the Paris Games. Zaho de Sagazan also participated in the closing ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.

Also listen to Zaho from Sagazan: “In just three minutes, a song can tell a billion things”