Patrick Bruel cancels autumn tour after being placed under examination for sexual assault allegations
The French singer, placed under examination in four cases of sexual assault, announced on Tuesday the cancellation of all his concerts scheduled from October onwards.
Bruel backs out of tour under pressure from mayors and complaints
Singer Patrick Bruel announced on Tuesday evening, via his Instagram account, the cancellation of all concerts on his autumn tour, which was scheduled to celebrate the 35th anniversary of his album Alors regarde. According to lefigaro.fr, pressure had intensified considerably in recent weeks, fuelled notably by opposition from several local officials to his performances in their cities.
The mayors of Chartres, Dijon, Strasbourg and Amiens had condemned the singer's visit with one voice. Aurore Bergé, minister responsible for equality between women and men, for her part stated that he "should of his own accord refrain from being able to hold these concerts".
Placed under examination in four cases
Patrick Bruel, 67, has been placed under examination since mid-June in four cases of sexual assault and placed under the status of assisted witness in four others. At least ten complaints have been filed against him for acts of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. At the singer's request, his judicial supervision had been relaxed at the end of July to allow him to leave French territory, a decision subsequently contested on appeal by the public prosecutor's office.
The singer had already cancelled all his concerts until September at the end of May. The autumn tour, which he is financing himself, was supposed to begin on 2 October in Chartres and end on 21 November. Several producers in the music industry had indicated to Le Figaro that performing in these conditions was not viable. "This tour will be unliveable," predicted one of them.
"Moments of music and sharing"
In his statement published on Tuesday evening, Bruel, who protests his innocence, explains having "deeply wished that this tour could take place", before noting that "the conditions are simply no longer in place for these concerts to remain what they should have been: moments of music and sharing".
He adds that he refuses for "the public and teams to be drawn into a debate that has no place in a concert hall", and claims not to be constrained by the courts, wishing for "appeasement". According to him, the tour "has become the embodiment of a debate that goes beyond it".
The NousToutes collective welcomes the cancellation
The feminist collective NousToutes, which had mobilised at the end of May in Paris to disrupt a theatre performance in which Bruel was acting, welcomed the decision. "We welcome the enormous feminist mobilisation that has made it possible for Patrick Bruel no longer to be able to perform on stage. The lesson is that mobilisations make it possible to deprogram such aggressors," declared Claudia, spokeswoman for the collective who wished to remain anonymous. "This tour was indecent, an insult to the victims," she continued.
Several mayors and associations of victims also welcomed the cancellation, seeing it as the result of strong civic and activist mobilisation against the programming of an artist judicially implicated.
Source: Google News LU FR