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Barbara Butch and lawyer: Anti-Zionism in Grenoble was a cloak for anti-Semitism
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On July 18, 2026, DJ Barbara Butch was forced to leave the stage in Grenoble after being subjected to insults and bottle-throwing by pro-Palestinian activists. In an op-ed in Le Monde co-signed with her lawyer Audrey Msellati, Butch denounces the incident as a slide toward violence and argues that the anti-Zionism invoked by the protesters was merely a cloak for anti-Semitism. The disruption followed a boycott call supported by La France Insoumise, targeting Butch's stated support for the Yadan Law. Butch describes a coordinated campaign to exclude her from public life, including defamation, pressure on venues, and intimidation. She notes that physical violence is the next step after other methods failed, drawing parallels to cyberharassment she suffered after the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, for which four men were convicted in 2025.
Source report
The Incident in Grenoble
On July 18, 2026, Barbara Butch took the stage in Grenoble to perform a DJ set. More than a hundred protesters greeted her with whistles, boos, shouts, and insults. Projectiles—including gravel, cardboard, plastic, and liquids—were thrown; glass bottles shattered on her console and at her feet. The music stopped, and Barbara Butch had to be escorted out.
Her concert was interrupted after being disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists. They were responding to a call for a boycott, supported by La France Insoumise, notably denouncing the DJ's stated support for the Yadan Law.
A Line Crossed
That evening, a line was crossed: the line that separates protest from coercion, disagreement from intimidation, and speech from violence. The protesters were no longer responding to an artist—they were driving her off the stage.
But Grenoble is not an isolated incident. For months, Barbara Butch has been the target of a coordinated campaign that no longer seeks merely to criticize her commitments, real or supposed, but to secure her exclusion from artistic and public life.
The Method
The method is consistent:
- Single her out
- Morally disqualify her
- Spread defamatory accusations against her ad nauseam
- Demand her removal from programs
- Pressure venues, festivals, local authorities, and the public
- Intimidate those who invite or support her
- Turn each of her appearances into a threat, each of her concerts into an ordeal, and each of her employers into a target
When none of this is enough, they resort to imposing coercion at the very place where she is to perform.
Stigma
Physical violence is not an outburst—it is the next step in an enterprise that has failed by all other means. This mechanism is familiar: Barbara Butch already suffered it in the aftermath of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games two years ago. She was then the subject of cyberharassment, and four men were subsequently convicted in 2025.
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Source
Politique : Toute l’actualité sur Le Monde.fr.Western
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Pro-Palestinian activists disrupt DJ Barbara Butch concert in Grenoble