Madonna voices love for tolerant France in Paris show
FRANCE: US pop queen Madonna praised France for its tolerance and
welcoming attitude to minorities and said she knew far-right leader
Marine Le Pen was "very angry with me" over a provocative video.
"I know that I have made a certain Marine Le Pen very angry with me.
It's not my intention to make enemies," Madonna told 2,700 fans at a
sell-out concert at the Olympia hall in Paris on Thursday.
France's far-right National Front said earlier this month it would
sue the singer over a video at an earlier Paris concert showing party
leader Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead.
The video, which served as a backdrop for Madonna's performance of
the song "Nobody Knows Me," flashed a picture of Le Pen's forehead
superimposed with a swastika, followed by an image resembling Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler.
Madonna went on to praise France for its tolerance and the welcome it
had extended to black entertainers.
"Before the civil rights in America, African American artists were
not allowed to perform in America ... but France opened their arms to
them, Josephine Baker, Charlie Parker ... people of colour, people with
difference, minorities felt welcome in France," she said.
"If we don't learn from history we will just repeat it. So the next
time you want to point the finger at somebody and blame them for the
problems in your life take that finger and point it back at you." Irish
actor Pierce Brosnan, star of Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" and a
former James Bond incarnation, was among the fans cheering the US pop
icon. AFP |