Mayor of Marseille Says Kanye West ‘Not Welcome’ to Perform Scheduled Concert in June
Kanye West walking on the red carpet during the 67th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Elyse Jankowski/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The mayor of France’s second-biggest city, Marseille, said he does not want American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in his city after the musician announced a scheduled concert at the Orange Velodrome stadium on June 11.
“I refuse to let Marseille become a showcase for those who promote hatred and unapologetic Nazism,” Mayor Benoît Payan wrote in a message posted on X. “Kanye West is not welcome at the Vélodrome, our temple of living together and of all Marseillais.”
Bruno Benjamin, president of the Marseille branch of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), said he is also opposed to Ye’s performance in June at the city-owned stadium due to the rapper’s past antisemitic behavior and comments.
“Welcoming to Marseille someone who has claimed his admiration for Hitler by stating ‘I am a Nazi’ ‘I love Hitler’ and multiplied antisemitic remarks raises a real moral question,” he wrote on X. “Marseille is a city marked by history, by the 1943 roundups and by the memory of the victims of Nazi barbarism. Artistic freedom exists. But the normalization of hatred must never become a spectacle. No @kanyewest in Marseille.”
Bendayan Fabienne, the former regional head of CRIF in Marseilles, has called for the cancellation of the concert and said the city should have “no promotion of antisemites.”
In a series of posts on X last year, Ye made several racist and antisemitic remarks, similar to the one he posted on the same social media platform in 2022 targeting Jews. The Grammy winner declared himself “a Nazi,” repeatedly expressed admiration for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and went on a rant about how much he dislikes Jews. He claimed antisemitism is “just some bulls—t Jewish people made up to protect their bulls—t.” Also last year, he sold T-shirts that featured a swastika design and released a song titled “Heil Hitler,” in which he further praised the Nazi leader.
Ye’s performance on June 11 at the Orange Velodrom is his only scheduled concert in France as part of a tour that includes stops in India later this month, Turkey in May, and Spain in July. Tickets are not on sale yet for the June 11 concert.
Ye has not performed in Europe since 2014 and his new tour will follow the release of his latest album “Bully,” on March 20. Mars 360, the agency organizing the concert in Marseilles, told AFP it included specific clauses into the concert contract with Ye “to ensure that no illegal remarks are made during the concert and that French law is fully respected.”
In a full-page advertisement published by the Wall Street Journal in January, Ye apologized for his past antisemitic behavior, which he blamed on his bipolar disorder and a “four-month long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid, and impulsive behavior” in early 2025. However, Ye claimed in an interview last year that he does not have bipolar disorder, stating that he has autism and believes he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In October 2022, Ye tweeted about wanting to physically harm Jews. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” he wrote in the since-deleted post, referring to the DEFCON system used by the US military to rate how alert the armed forces should be at any given moment in the face of a threat. He later apologized for his remarks and said he “definitely was drinking” when he was posted the antisemitic comments in 2022.
Shortly after Ye’s antisemitic rant in 2022, he praised Hitler in an interview with far-right talk show host Alex Jones and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and stereotypes during an interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.