The debate about the anthem “L’amour toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino, sung by xenophobic citizens, continues. Claudia Roth has spoken out against a ban on the problematically rewritten song.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth has expressed reservations about the planned ban on the party hit “L’amour toujours” at several folk festivals. It is more important to intervene consistently in the case of racist statements, argued the Green politician in the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Roth said it was right for organizers to think about how to ensure that racism, misanthropy and Nazi chants have no place at Oktoberfest and other festivals. However, neither “L’amour toujours” nor the Italian music producer Gigi D’Agostino can do anything about “how this song is being abused and distorted in the worst possible way in our country by people with right-wing extremist and anti-democratic attitudes.”
Roth continued: “It would be much more important than banning songs now for the responsible operators to provide training and sensitization for their staff, to employ professional awareness teams and to make it clear overall that there must be a zero-tolerance policy towards any racist, misanthropic and Nazi-glorifying statements.” Intervening instead of looking away and ignoring them is now “required of all of us”.
The song “L’amour toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino is often misused for racist slogans. A video recently caused great outrage, showing visitors to a bar on the North Sea island of Sylt chanting “Foreigners out” and “Germany for the Germans” to the tune.
State security is investigating. Numerous other incidents have since been reported. The song is therefore not to be played at some festivals, including the Munich Oktoberfest and the Cannstatter Volksfest.
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