Singer Claude deprogrammed from a festival in a Parisian church for "attacking religious symbols"

Claude announced it on Instagram just hours before his concert scheduled for Wednesday at the Saint-Eustache church. He was to participate in the acoustic festival Qui va piano va sano in this church in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. But the priest Yves Tcheris decided to deprogram the singer's performance, after watching one of his clips entitled Help me a little.

The video in question depicts a priest torn between love and faith. A theme freely inspired by the novel The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, in which one of the characters finds himself in a similar situation. If the parish priest of Saint-Eustache church considers that the question of the sexuality of priests is "very topical and deserves to be asked", he nevertheless judges that the film undermines religious symbols, such as the host or the chalice who "deserve respect". "I don't know if an artist always measures very well, when he uses religious symbols, the impact they can have on those who practice them," he explains to BFMTV.

Yves Tcheris said he was "deeply annoyed" to have had to cancel the concert. "I'm not used to refusing artists," he says. But I am responsible for a religious community of more than 2,000 people who come together around these extremely sensitive symbols for her. »

Claude tried to convince the priest to reconsider his decision by explaining the video and its parallel with Umberto Eco's novel, in vain. "They didn't necessarily hear that interpretation or consider it enough to explain that clip," he says on his Instagram Story. A difficult decision but understood by the singer. “It's their freedom to see things that way. I'm just deeply sorry for the people who partly came to see me tonight. »

According to BFMTV, Antoine Bisou, in charge of the organization of the acoustic festival Qui va piano va sano also understands the position of the parish but "regrets the personal interpretation of the clip" made by the church. “We maintain that Claude has the right to public this clip, to sing what he wants. We tried to argue that it was not sacred objects that were used but movie props, but that was not the point. »

In 2021, Eddy de Pretto had performed in this same church. He was then the target of more than 3,000 homophobic messages and death threats on social networks. Eleven people had received suspended sentences ranging from three to six months in prison for cyberbullying. Yves Tcheris specifies that at the time he had defended the artist “because in his performance, there was no form of attack on the life of the church. »