A former French government minister has denounced the controversial transgender parody of “The Last Supper” featuring Muslim performers at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics as an act of national “suicide”.
In France, which remains in limbo after President Emmanuel Macron’s election leaves it without a real government, the Olympics were meant to signal a political truce, but the deeply divided country saw anger and jubilation along political lines over the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on Saturday night.
The opening ceremony, billed as the “gayest ever” Olympics, sparked criticism that it promoted paganism and openly mocked Christianity with a trans interpretation of Jesus Christ’s Last Supper.
Former French Minister of Culture Philippe de Villiers Said He called the opening ceremony “disgraceful,” adding: “We are committing national suicide in front of the whole world.”
“The Last Supper with drag queens and the beheading of Marie Antoinette add more notoriety to the ugliness. Macron and woke France is not France.”
So too has Marion Maréchal, a right-wing French populist MEP and niece of Marine Le Pen. Said“To all Christians around the world who watched the Paris 2024 ceremonies and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France who is speaking, but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation. Not in my name.”
Fellow Christians around the world, #Paris2024 If you attend the ceremony and feel insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking, but a left-wing minority ready to respond to any provocation. #NotMyName
À tous les chrétiens du monde… pic.twitter.com/GusP2TR63u
— Marion Marechal (@MarionMarechal) July 26, 2024
The ritual, widely described as anti-Christian, has also been criticized by Christian leaders, including Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.
“Clearly France, in its bid to maximize its culture, felt it was right to mock a very central moment in Christianity – Jesus’ offering of his body and blood at the Last Supper before the cross. This has been presented as a terrible and thoughtless mockery,” Bishop Baron said.
“This very secular, postmodern society knows who the enemy is. They have named them. We should believe them. But moreover, we Christians, we Catholics, should not be cowards. We should fight back, we should make our voices heard.”
The Catholic bishop asked: “Have they ever dared to ridicule Islam in a similar way? Have they ever dreamed of mocking a scene from the Koran in such a vulgar and public way? We all know the answer.”
Hey everyone, here are my thoughts on the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. #Olympiadas2024 #Olympic events pic.twitter.com/xU1ljFMZft
— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) July 27, 2024
Indeed, the opening ceremony featured a performance by Aya Nakamura, a 28-year-old French-Malian Muslim singer who is often compared to singers like Cardi B and Rihanna. Nakamura sang “Pookie” (“The Informer”) accompanied by the French Republican Guard. majority 63 percent of French people are against her taking part in the opening ceremony.
Many on France’s progressive left praised the opening ceremony, including Green Party lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau. Declared “This ceremony is the best response to the rise of fascism and the far right.”
“Let the world wake up. The world will be a more beautiful place,” she added.
Thomas Portes, a far-left parliament member who has caused controversy by calling for Israeli Jewish athletes to be banned from participating in the Olympics, said on Saturday that he was “pleased to see an Olympic ceremony that goes against the racist and reactionary obsession of the far right and its media… a ceremony in which the Palestinian delegation was applauded.”
—Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 27, 2024
