Elian Peltier

Other cast members for the theater’s upcoming production of Albert Camus’ “The Just Assassins” watched from the wings or from seats in the auditorium.

“We want to see you panic,” Malik told Touré. “This is a life-or-death situation.”

It was a typical rehearsal that could have played out in any theater, anywhere in France. But one thing stood out: the ethnic diversity of the artists.

As one of the young actors, Régis Nkissi, said: “Here, onstage, are people like us.”

By “like us,” Nkissi meant: “Blacks, Arabs, who come from the suburbs, who didn’t think they would do drama one day, even less so at the Châtelet,” said Sabrina Ouazani, 30, an actress with an Algerian background, who stars in one of the play’s main roles.

Written by Camus in 1949, “The Just Assassins” is a classic of French theater. Malik, 44, who is known in France as an author and spoken-word artist as much as a musician, has mostly stayed faithful to the existentialist playwright’s text. But he has given it some modern twists.

Featuring young amateur actors from Paris’ deprived suburbs, who play alongside professionals, and musicians playing hip-hop and R&amp;B;, the production opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 19. It will be Malik’s debut as a theater director.

“The Just Assassins” will also be a first for the Châtelet: It is the first play known to be directed by a black artist at the 157-year-old theater, which reopened last month after an extensive restoration.

“My friends tell me that theater isn’t their cup of tea,” said Célia Meguerba, 23, an amateur dancer from the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, whose appearance in “The Just Assassins” will be her first time onstage in a professional show. “It still has a reputation of being for rich people, not for those in the suburbs,” she added.

French theater has long been accused of poorly reflecting the country’s ethnic diversity, and criticism has grown louder in recent years. What should be a mirror of society is broken, experts and actors say, and reflects a distorted reality that leaves out significant parts of France’s population — both onstage and in the audience.

In contrast to the overwhelmingly white makeup of many French productions, only three of the 20 actors in “The Just Assassins” are white, and most of the cast have African and Asian origins. “That’s the France I grew up with, the France I live with and the France I love,” said Malik, who spent his childhood in a housing project near Strasbourg, in eastern France.

After casting young actors from the Paris suburbs, Malik worked with them to develop some aphorisms that he has inserted into the play. These additions to Camus’ text reflect contemporary anxieties such as climate change and terrorism and are chanted by a group of actors onstage at the end of each act. “I wanted Camus’ text to resonate with them, so the chorus could tell us about the youth in 2019,” he said.

The result is what Malik calls a “musical tragedy,” which follows a group of revolutionaries planning the murder of a Russian aristocrat in 1905. Based on a true story, “The Just Assassins” grapples with moral questions: whether important ends justify violent means, and if ideals are worth dying for.

Malik said he aimed to show that actors with non-European immigrant backgrounds can also claim a role in exploring Europe’s past.

“Minority communities have the right to own this history,” Ruth Mackenzie, the Châtelet’s artistic director, said in an interview. She added that she hoped “The Just Assassins” could be a French equivalent to “Hamilton,” the acclaimed musical about the life of the American Founding Father.

McKenzie, a British arts administrator who was asked to lead the Châtelet in 2017, has developed a long-term plan for the theater called Châtelet 2030, which sets out her vision to “attract the diversity of Greater’s Paris population,” and “The Just Assassins” is part of that mission.

Other French theaters have also developed programs to promote inclusion. A training scheme, First Act, developed at the National Theater of Strasbourg, has trained more than 80 actors from underrepresented backgrounds since 2015. At the National Drama Center in Normandy, the artistic director, David Bobée, has committed that 30% of the actors and directors who work at the theater will be from ethnic minorities.

But institutions still have a long way to go. The Comédie Française, France’s most storied theater, is still overwhelmingly white: Only three of the 59 actors in the permanent company are black. France has five designated “national theaters” (of which the Comédie Française is one): Four of these have white artistic directors; among the leaders of the 38 publicly funded theaters across the country in the next tier of prestige, 36 are white.

Gerty Dambury, a writer and theater director from Guadeloupe who co-founded the activist collective Decolonize the Arts, said only long-term initiatives, not isolated projects, could make France’s theaters more diverse.

“Recruiting in theater schools has changed, but it takes time to bear fruit,” Dambury said.

And stereotypes can be deeply rooted. At the Festival d’Avignon this summer, Dambury said she was asked by a white director to soften her accent and “speak straight.”

At the Châtelet, Malik has told actors to speak as they usually do. He saw their accents “as a plus, not as something we should get rid of,” Ouazani said.

Moriba Bathily, 20, an amateur singer from the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, said he saw Malik as a role model who had showed him that he, too, could succeed in the arts.

“I grew up in a ghetto; I still live there, but today I’m part of a chorus in a Camus play directed by Abd al Malik at the Châtelet theater,” Bathily said. “Doesn’t it speak for itself?”

Saturday through Oct 19 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; chatelet.com.

This article originally appeared in

Can a Rapper's Take on Camus Become France's 'Hamilton'?

PARIS — On a recent afternoon, Karidja Touré stood under the gilded arch of the Théâtre du Châtelet’s stage, and listened intently while rapper and writer Abd al Malik asked her to add some fear to her voice and more agitation to her gestures.

An official at the Paris prosecutor’s office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with official policy, said “numerous investigations” by Paris police could not show that Besson, 59, had coerced Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy into unwanted sex.

Van Roy, a 28-year-old actress who filed a lawsuit against Besson in May and a second one in July, accused him of raping her on at least four occasions, and said he once injured her “to the point of bleeding.” In an interview with The New York Times in July, she described a two-year-long “abusive” relationship with Besson and said she was afraid to turn down his advances out of fear that it would hurt her career.

According to the first lawsuit, Van Roy told police in May on the day after the sexual contact that she said made her bleed: “I’m afraid he might kill me, he is a psychopath.”

Besson was the first prominent figure in the French film industry to face accusations of sexual misconduct in the wake of the #MeToo revelations. A total of nine women, including actresses, a former casting director and colleagues of Besson, have described inappropriate behavior by him to the investigative website Mediapart, but only Van Roy filed a lawsuit. After the decision by the Paris prosecutor’s office, her lawsuits will be closed without further action.

Van Roy started her career as a model and later became a stand-up comedian before turning to film acting. She said she first met Besson in 2015 as she auditioned for a part in his film “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” and after she obtained a small role in the movie, the two became acquainted over meetings for tea at a luxury hotel in Paris.

Van Roy told police that Besson began approaching her sexually during the shooting of “Valerian,” and that although she was reluctant, she did not shun him.

But the sexual contact became rougher, she told the police in May. Van Roy told The Times that she had found Besson penetrating her on two occasions while she was asleep, and that he had once refused to use protection despite her requests.

Van Roy also shot scenes to appear in Besson’s upcoming movie “Anna,” but her role in the cast became unclear after she filed the lawsuits. The film’s release in 2019 has been delayed after Besson’s company, EuropaCorp, shut down its in-house distribution business.

Among the other women who have made allegations against Besson, an actress in her 40s who wanted to remain anonymous told French police this month that the filmmaker had thrown himself on her and tried to kiss her by force in Paris in March 2002. The Paris prosecutor’s office said an additional preliminary investigation had been opened into those accusations. The actress told Mediapart that she did not file a complaint because the statute of limitations for sexual assault is six years in France.

Thierry Marembert, Besson’s lawyer, said Monday that his client had always denied Van Roy’s accusations. “This decision comes after a very complete investigation, to which he has fully cooperated,” Marembert wrote in a release sent to the news service Agence France-Presse.

Van Roy’s lawyer, Francis Szpiner, wrote on Twitter that he would soon file a new complaint against Besson. Under French law, if a complaint filed with prosecutors is dropped — as was the case Monday — the plaintiff, under certain conditions, can file a new complaint that automatically hands over the case to independent investigative judges. Such action also enables the plaintiff to seek both civil and criminal action.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/movies/luc-besson-accusation-no-charges.html" id="eae2cb67-efd0-37f1-a1ed-c90aa2ce7648">The New York Times</a>.

PARIS — Authorities here said Monday that French film director Luc Besson would face no charges after a nine-month inquiry into an actress’ accusations that he had raped her.

Luc Besson, French Director, Won't Be Charged After Rape Accusation

His two favorite targets, the political far-right and religious fundamentalists, have punched back. Médine, who is Muslim, has received death threats from right-wing activists, and in 2015, he found out that he was on an Islamic State group kill list.

The blow he received in September knocked him out for weeks.

After months of outrage from far-right activists, who started a petition accusing Médine of “singing violent lyrics in the name of Islam,” the rapper canceled two concerts at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris that were supposed to be the pinnacle of his current tour of France.

The Bataclan has become a hallowed site to many in France, after 90 people were killed there in a terrorist attack in 2015; opponents called the invitation for Médine to perform there an “indecency.” The rapper said he wanted to avoid demonstrations against the show out of respect for the victims’ families.

“I am aware that in the eye of the average French person, I embody many fears and delusions: I am a rapper, I have Algerian roots, I am Muslim, and I grew up in housing projects,” Médine, 35, said in a recent interview.

“What I had not realized is that, in 2018, you can’t change people’s mindset,” he added. “We don’t accept the complexities, the contradictions.”

The outcry that pushed the rapper to cancel his Bataclan concerts focused on “Don’t Laïk,” which includes the line, “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.”

Far-right activists also berated the title of a 2005 album, “Jihad,” subtitled “The Greatest Fight Is Against Oneself.” Médine said the title referred to the spiritual struggle undertaken by all practicing Muslims, and did not carry the violent connotations critics associate with the term.

“One should be able to make political rap, what we used to call ‘rap with a conscience,'” Médine said, adding that he had a “right to be irresponsible.”

Some French intellectuals defended him throughout the controversy, arguing that one of the most respected and well-spoken rappers in France had a rightful place at the Bataclan. Yet they were outnumbered by critics.

“Médine has rightly claimed a strong affiliation to many French cultural figures, because he defends and embodies the fundamentals of that culture,” said Emmanuelle Carinos, a sociologist who studies violence in French rap. She defined those as, “the love of sharp words, controversial thoughts and confrontation.”

In interviews, and in his lyrics, Médine has compared himself to irreverent humorists and songwriters of the 20th century such as Jacques Brel, and to novelists like Victor Hugo.

“But he might have been too confident,” Carinos said, “and not aware that many would also single out some lyrics and take the most provocative ones at face value.”

Médine grew up in Le Havre, a port city in northwestern France where he lives with his wife and three children. Médine, who is of Algerian descent, converted to Islam as a teenager. He started to rap both about the dangers of radicalization and Islamophobia early in his career.

“In our youth, rap was like sports, a pastime,” said Brav, a fellow rapper who has known Médine since childhood. “Médine was a notch above: His rap was very mature; he wanted to use it to stun people.”

Many fans praise Médine’s music as enlightening and educational; Some commentators have called it “library’s rap.”

One hit was about airstrike in Palestine, and another was dedicated to Dr. Denis Mukwege, the gynecologist who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end the use of mass rape as a weapon of war. The lyrics of another, on the killing of dozens of Algerian protesters in Paris in 1961, were published in a history book for high school students.

“I learned about the Rohingyas by listening to his rap,” said Anaïs Soumaïla, 18, a student who was at a Médine concert in the Paris suburb of Cergy in November. She said Médine’s songs “give a broader perspective on our world, well beyond the suburbs or French society.”

“Médine is disturbing for many people, because he says out loud what many refuse to say,” said Linda Hella, 45, a government employee, also at the concert. “He embodies France — it’s just a France that is more complex and multicultural than many would like it to be.”

Other fans at the concert included students wearing headscarves, a communist librarian and a retired professor.

Once seen as a style of music made by and for the underprivileged, rap now has broad, mainstream appeal in France.

In 2017, rapper Soprano filled France’s second-largest stadium — the Vélodrome in Marseille, his hometown — something that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. In November, a group of hip-hop artists including Sniper and Sofiane performed at the prestigious Philhamornie de Paris, a venue more often associated with classical music. Sofiane and Médine have both given lectures at renowned universities in Paris: Sciences Po and the École Normale Supérieure.

In his most recent albums, released in 2017 and in April, Médine has followed French hip-hop’s journey into the mainstream, tackling fewer controversial topics and featuring more instrumental music and shorter verses.

“His songs have somehow become much more superficial, much less engaged than they used to be,” said Yérim Sar, a rap critic for the public radio station Mouv’.

Sar said Médine’s lyrics still include many gibes but they are more scattered than they used to be. On Médine’s current tour, he performs onstage with his 10-year-old son, and he has dedicated a song to his daughter.

Youssoupha, another political rapper who has also moved to making more approachable music, said in an interview that French hip-hop musicians “used to be angry and had a lot to say, now we have families and we make videos with our kids.”

Since canceling the Bataclan concerts, Médine has released two new songs and announced a replacement date at a larger Paris venue in February. But the controversy has left a stain, he said.

“For years, I have been warning about the dangers of radical Islam,” he said. “Now I’m branded as a bomber.”

He said he did not want be seen as a victim because he had canceled the show. “But it’s a form of self-censorship,” he added. “I have been struggling to find the right tone, the right emotion since then.”

As Médine prepared backstage for his concert in Cergy, his bodyguard read out the latest death threat that had been flagged by police. An anonymous writer said that even if Médine wore a bulletproof jacket onstage — he doesn’t — he would be “carried out feet first” nonetheless. The rapper seemed unfazed.

“Dying on stage, isn’t it the most beautiful death ever?” Médine said. “Maybe they’ll see me as an artist at last.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/arts/music/medine-france-rap.html" id="069ab905-6674-3474-aaba-9644c9164ead">The New York Times</a>.

Médine: The Pugnacious French Rapper Who Hits Back at Critics

PARIS — French rapper Médine often compares his music to boxing: In a career spanning 15 years, he has thrown countless hooks and barbs.

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Elian Peltier

Articles written by the author

Can a Rapper's Take on Camus Become France's 'Hamilton'?

Luc Besson, French Director, Won't Be Charged After Rape Accusation

Médine: The Pugnacious French Rapper Who Hits Back at Critics