Barbara Butch files complaint against La France insoumise after concert cancellation

Grenoble – 23 July 2026: DJ Barbara Butch has filed several complaints following the cancellation of her concert at the Cabaret Frappe festival in Grenoble. According to her lawyer, Audrey Msellati, the legal action is directed, among others, against La France insoumise (LFI). The allegations being examined include public incitement to hatred and violence, aggravated violence, obstruction of artistic freedom, aggravated cyberbullying, defamation and aggravated public insult.

The performance on Saturday, 18 July, was ended after around twenty minutes. The city of Grenoble said it had suspended the event because of threats against the artist and in order to protect the audience, teams and everyone present. Citing the city, the FNCC, an association of municipal cultural bodies, also reported booing, insults and objects being thrown. The municipality itself intends to file a complaint against persons unknown.

The Grenoble public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Tuesday, 21 July, into the offence of collective obstruction of freedoms. This proceeding concerns the course of the disruption and must be distinguished from the complaints now announced or filed by the artist and her company, Butch Events. Whether the criminal allegations are substantiated will only be determined by the investigation; filing complaints does not constitute a finding of guilt.

The conflict has a political background. Local LFI representatives and pro-Palestinian activists had called for a boycott of the performance. They justified this, among other reasons, by citing earlier positions taken by Barbara Butch on Israel and her support for a proposed law targeting new forms of antisemitism. The proposal, which became known as the Yadan law, was politically controversial and has since been withdrawn.

Figures close to La France insoumise stress that an artist’s political decisions must be open to criticism. The party also points out that it supported Barbara Butch in 2024, when she became the target of massive digital abuse after her appearance at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games. No general statement from the national LFI leadership on the new complaints was initially available on Thursday.

The case therefore touches on two distinct but politically closely connected issues: the right to boycott and engage in political criticism on the one hand, and the limits of intimidation and preventing a public cultural event on the other. For Grenoble, whose city administration supports the festival, the dispute is also institutionally significant: protecting artistic freedom and ensuring safe events are among the core duties of public authorities.

Barbara Butch became known beyond the queer music scene through her involvement in the Olympic opening ceremony on 26 July 2024. At the time, she filed a complaint over death threats and antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and weight-based abuse online. The current affair shifts the debate from digital hate to the question of which forms of political mobilization at cultural events are legally and democratically permissible.