French National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen has hit out at Queen of Pop Madonna following her controversial performance at her inaugural tour concert in Tel Aviv last Thursday, during which photos of the extreme right leader were projected on a screen with a Swastika pasted to her forehead.
The image was swiftly followed by a composite representation of Adolf Hitler.
Le Pen, who assumed leadership of France’s third largest political party from her father, veteran FN president Jean-Marie Le Pen, described the Kabbalah-devotee as “an old singer, desperate to be spoken about, since her songs no longer work”.
According to Bruno Bilde, Le Pen’s chief of staff, such doctored representations of the political leader, who polled third place in the first round of the recent French presidential elections, "are nothing new."“We regularly see images of Marine with a Hitler moustache superimposed on it. But such moves have little effect, as we know they hold no sway with our supporters.”
According to sources close to Le Pen, she was considering whether to take legal action against the singer, who is scheduled to perform the French leg of her tour in the Stade de France in Paris on July 14, which, ironically, will coincide with Bastille Day, the commemoration of the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison in Paris, leading to the French Revolution and the declaration of the First Republic in France.
FN party lawyer Wallerand de Saint-Just responded to the video by saying “we will win a pay-out with the legal suit we will launch”.
Le Pen has previously attracted criticism for an address she made to FN party supporters in Lyon in December 2010, during which she compared the illegal blocking of public streets and squares throughout France for Muslim prayers to WWII occupation of certain parts of France.
French media and politicians condemned her analogy for drawing a controversial parallel with Nazi occupation of France during WWII.
Madonna’s Tel Aviv performance came under fire for other reasons too. The controversy-seeking singer had originally described the Israeli show, the first of her 80-country tour, as a “Concert for Peace”, and she made several calls for peace throughout the evening, to rapturous applause from the crowd.
However, she opened her performance, on a stage decorated with symbols reminiscent of both Israeli and Palestinian sides, with the sound of a church bell, over which came the chanting of God’s name in Hebrew.
Images of guns and goriness were interspersed with Catholic symbols, paying tribute to her Catholic upbringing. Church bells rang out and bare-chested monks marched in front of a large red cross, as a Hebrew prayer was chanted and Madonna appeared on the stage on her knees in a Catholic confessional booth, before breaking through the glass window with a rifle.
The controversy didn’t end there, either. As rumoured, from the series of evocative images of the Queen of Pop and her backing dancers posted to her official Facebook page, Madonna performed opening numbers such as Gang Bang and Revolver holding a gun in her hand. As she ‘shot’ it, blood stains appeared to splatter at a screen behind her.
The Hollywood Reporter reviewed her performance, writing that “the opening night of Madonna’s world tour in Tel Aviv, Israel, featured a disproportionate amount of violence”.
Reuters meanwhile reported that “she showcased grim dance routines depicting violence and bloody gunmen among her more colourful routines”, in direct contrast with her declared wish for peace in the Middle East.
Madonna, however, returned to her favoured message at several points during the show, preaching that “no matter how many laws we change and how many percentages of land we give, no matter how many talks, no matter how many wars, if we don’t treat every human being with dignity and respect, we will never have peace”.