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Madonna: France Today is like ‘Nazi Germany’

Tells Europe 1 interviewer ‘anti-Semitism is at an all-time high’

by
Stephanie Butnick
February 27, 2015
Madonna at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on February 8, 2015. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Madonna at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on February 8, 2015. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Madonna, the outspoken singer whose lithe performance at last month’s Grammy Awards makes it hard to believe exactly how long she’s been an outspoken singer, gave an interview to Europe 1 in which she doubled down against France’s far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, onto whose face the Material Girl projected a (backwards) swastika during concerts a few years back. (Le Pen threatened to sue). Madonna also condemned the current climate in France, saying “anti-Semitism is at an all-time high.”

The frightening reality faced by the Jews of France for the past year—heightened by last month’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and subsequent deadly siege at a kosher supermarket across the city—is no secret. The toxic atmosphere has led French Jews to flee for Israel in record numbers. But many pundits and politicians have danced around just what, exactly, to compare the situation in France.

Not her Madgesty.

“I said this two years ago. It’s like we’re living in crazy times. It feels like, it feels like, you know, Nazi Germany.”

“The level of intolerance that’s going on is pretty scary,” she added. “It’s not just happening in France, I’ve felt it all over Europe.”

You can listen to the interview (which is in English but dubbed intermittently with French translations) here:

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.