Rap trio will face intense scrutiny from French authorities when they play Rock en Seine festival on Sunday
The Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap are ploughing ahead with their European tour despite a ban on entering Hungary, the cancellation of a string of concerts in Austria and Germany, and the intense scrutiny of authorities in France.
The Irish-language group will this Sunday play in front an expected 40,000 spectators at the Rock en Seine festival west of Paris, one of France’s biggest live music events of the year, just days after one of their members appeared at a London court on a terrorism charge.
France’s interior ministry gave the green light to the Paris concert after establishing that “there is no longer a risk of serious disturbance to public order” that would justify banning the band from appearing at the festival in the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, a 460-hectare park.
Kneecap had agreed to abide by a code of conduct after facing a ban from playing the Eurockéennes festival at the Lac de Malsaucy Belfort nature reserve in July and had abided by that code since, said the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, in a letter to the French MP Caroline Yadan. Yadan has called for the group to be banned from entering the country. “Any excesses will be immediately prosecuted,” Retailleau said.
