'It wasn't a show, it was propaganda!' - French MEP slams 'woke' Olympics opening ceremony

now after a rather damp opening to The Paris Olympic opening ceremony uh that's come under a barrage of criticism from the slow winding procession to a strange interpretation of a Last Supper Tableau was the daring and unusual ceremony a damp squib well joining me now to discuss this is the French member of the European Parliament for the Recon quet party Sara knfo uh Sara thank you so much for making the time for us uh this morning um first of all um Friday started with an extraordinary Act of coordinated arson before anyone made any move on the opening ceremony at all um do we know anything about who is to blame yet in any case the government is not saying farle organizations have been mentioned to as being responsible and I have to say I would not be surprised at all it was Jean luk M's friends who had have threatened the Israeli delegation not to come to the Olympics which is unacceptable this attack shows of how vulnerable the organization of the Olympics is despite the billions of Euros spent for the preparation and for security it shows that despite macron's best efforts the underlying reality of French society today is there we are so divided because of micon's policies and his predecessors policies that we need 50,000 policemen to secure our capital is this a society at peace no it is the result of years of neglect of the core problem of of our societies including Mass immigration we live in a society that is negligent towards the guilty the terrorist the ultr left but in transigent with honest people we've seen just how tough French government is on our media and I think we will talk about it again we will We we'll get to that in in a little bit um but to the opening ceremony it's uh of course caused quite a stir quite an unusual opening ceremony what did you make of it I must say that I'm ashamed for my country what a terrible spectacle we have given to the world I don't recognize myself in what was portrayed of my country during this ceremony where was the Beauty and the pride of our history I would have had a million ideas to give to the show's designer but too bad they didn't call me in reality the organizers tried to push a progressist work agenda as you said it was not a show it was propaganda and a very boring badest propaganda the ceremony was about how macron sees France not about was France really is deeply it was a series of growing cliches about diversity transgenderism and multiculturalism like it was a political show this is not France there was quite a lot of French culture in there we saw the louv we saw um the the most popular French language singer and of course uh at the end of the the light show on the Eiffel Tower was tremendous surely surely that's something to be proud of yeah yeah you're right the beautiful images of Paris our capital and our national anthem was were beautiful because they can do everything they like to our bridges and monuments but this marvelous Bridges and monuments continue to desel the world now I think that we need to move on from this apping ceremony what is important for me now is the athletes and the competition I look forward to see the athletes competing and I'm very happy and now very proud that France already won its first gold medal yesterday with the rugby well done to them now um of course the the the Tableau of the the Last Supper that we saw on one of the bridges has has caused a huge amount of controversy online some people are saying it's Blasphemous and that's leaving aside the fact that it's a representation of an Italian scene by an Italian painter I'm not quite sure how how how related to France it's supposed to be uh but I suppose on the other hand there is a proud and strong French tradition of putting uh two fingers up to Authority and to religion and to and and and promoting sort of mockery in a way isn't this precisely what FR France has been about since uh 1789 very interesting question what it demonstrates is that PE this people do not respect our history as French people you can criticize any religion in you're right but the real problem is the fact that these people would not do this for other religions and particularly Islam but they are ready to do everything to destroy and humiliate our Christian Heritage they know that with Christians they risk nothing Carl Marx is is qued as saying it's like slapping your grandmother in the face this means that they are attacking other they have already destroyed when you are a rebel you risk something take salentin it took courage to denounce the Soviet Union and he paid a heavy price for it at this ceremony we had Rebels applauded by the president of the Republic and praised by the Press they are the most subsidized ribbers in the world from every every public purse and every organization in short their Rebellion is an official rebellion and yet and yet do you not look at some of this uh criticism that's talking about all of this blasphemy and how how outrageous it is and think is this not the country of vol is this is this not a proud French tradition to be well quite Blasphemous you know I can say that in the past being subversive meant to be against the norm today being subversive is the norm so they are official Rebels okay well we're going to move on to this question of the French broadcast regulator now of course it's shut down a television channel that happened to be owned by a conservative uh what on Earth is going on here yeah there is a an attempt in France to shut down pre speech particularly towards the right the regulator's decision is part of the that C8 this is the channel you are talking about has been cancelled by the state because it dared to Showcase different views on the political situation and on the problems that France is facing this is ironic because most of the media landscape in France is dominated by the left take the public broadcaster Radio France it is openly anti right and yet they are not being investigated or even criticized because they are on the right side of the political discourse so there is a double standard according to me it shows that the system is desperate they can't fight us using regular methods so they attempt to stop us from reaching the French public they won't succeed yeah the channel had already uh attracted I think 7.6 million euros in fines uh this is for for various breaches of uh of broadcasting standards they were accused of promoting fake news and not respecting pluralism not not hosting all sides of the debate um what do you say to that they were accused by the same regulator what do you mean it is the same regulator that accused them for what you say and the same one just cancelled the channel so there is a c it's the same people firstly the chairman of the French broadcast regulator is appointed by the president so you can imagine how independent is some in the current government in France have called for the canellation of C8 license the regulator is supposed to be independent but these people are part of the same group they went to the same school I know them I went to the same school as them they don't don't even need to coordinate they share the same ideology and they see channels like C8 as a threat like you I think this is fascinating because C8 as I'm told hosted one of the most popular evening talk shows in France uh which we can see on our screen right now and now it's being taken off air it does seem quite extraordinary um should we on this side of the channel be worried about that yeah I think that this problem goes well beyond Fran's borders all across Europe the system feel threatened and is reacting in a more and more restrictive illiberal way it is sick to see the state and Regulators being involved in judging what is politically right and wrong who are they who elected them we have a new holy Inquisition that is killing freedom of speech and yes I've heard that GB news is also targeted for me it would be unacceptable if you are being stopped to broadcast for political reasons the United Kingdom is the bir place of democracy in Parliament it would be ironic if it's also the place where it dies