(JEWISH GROUP) 4 arrested after protesters set off smoke bombs at Paris performance of Israel Philharmonic
Four people were arrested by French police late Thursday after protesters set off smoke bombs during a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris.
Spectators who bought tickets attempted three disruptions during the concert on Thursday night, twice with smoke bombs, according to the Philharmonie de Paris. The protesters also clashed with other people in the audience and musicians briefly left the stage. Once the protesters were evacuated, the concert resumed.
Video from the auditorium showed a chaotic scene, with smoke and flames causing some in the audience to scatter and attendees throwing punches at each other without any obvious immediate intervention.
Criticism had mounted ahead of the performance, with pro-Palestinian activists calling for its cancellation. CGT-Spectacle Union, which represents workers in the performing arts, said in October that the Philharmonie de Paris should not hold the concert without “reminding the public of the extremely serious accusations weighing on the leaders of that country [Israel] or the nature of the crime committed in Gaza.”
The Philharmonie de Paris said it “strongly condemns and deplores” the disruptions. “Nothing can justify such actions,” the group said in a statement on Friday. “Whatever one’s opinions may be, it is completely unacceptable to threaten the safety of the public, staff and artists.”
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Why a concert hall should be the last place for a protest — particularly an antisemitic one like this
In the opening lines of his recently published memoir, the pianist Sir Andras Schiff, born to Hungarian-Jewish parents in 1953, writes, “To begin with there is silence, and music comes out of silence. Then comes the miracle of highly varied, progressive forms growing out of sounds and structures. After that, the silence returns.”
Yet at the start of Schiff’s rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic last week at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, music did not come out of silence. Instead, what came out of silence was the hiss of flares followed by gasps, shouts and insults when four members of the audience tried to interrupt the opening of the concerto.
According to an official communiqué from the Philharmonie de Paris, the protesters twice lit flares while walking towards the stage, trailing smoke and sparks behind them. Schiff and the conductor, Lahav Shani, left the stage, while several audience members confronted the protesters. Altercations quickly followed and all four protesters were soon removed by a security detail from the auditorium and subsequently arrested by the police.
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On the far right, Marine Le Pen, in her continuing effort to efface the antisemitic origins of her political party, the National Rally, quickly added her voice to the cacophony. “The incidents provoked last night by antisemitic activists on the extreme left could have turned into a tragedy.” Turning this tragedy into comedy, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen warned on X that such “acts are intolerable and calls for an exemplary response from our courts.” (Le Pen continues to denounce, it should be noted, those same courts that recently found her guilty of the embezzlement of campaign funds.)
As for the extreme left, they turned the cacophony into what could only be called a kakaphony. In a television interview, a spokesperson for Defiant France, Manon Aubry, refused to condemn what she described as “incidents.” More tellingly, she then reminded listeners that the target of the protest “was not just any artist.” Instead, they were “artists who represent the Israeli state.”
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