French DJ Barbara Butch during her performance at the Nuit Blanche festival on the forecourt of the City Hall in Paris, France on June 6, 2026. Photo: Quentin de Groeve / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

French Jewish disc jockey Barbara Butch was forced offstage Saturday after a large group of antisemitic, pro-Palestinian activists disrupted her performance at a music festival in Grenoble, pelting the stage with objects and subjecting her to sustained abuse.

Butch later described the incident in an op-ed for the French newspaper Le Monde, written with her lawyer, saying the confrontation represented the culmination of a months-long campaign to drive her from French cultural and public life.

She was performing at the Cabaret Frappé festival when more than 100 protesters packed the audience and assailed her with “whistles, boos, shouts, and insults,” according to the op-ed. Demonstrators also hurled gravel, cardboard, plastic objects, liquids, and glass bottles, some of which shattered on her mixing console and near her feet.

Video from the scene, shared by the pro-Israel entertainment industry organization Creative Community for Peace, showed protesters waving large Palestinian flags and chanting “Free, free Palestine.” Some members of the far-left La France Insoumise party were among the demonstrators, according to French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.

Butch was eventually escorted from the venue and her set was cut short.

The demonstrators had called for a boycott of Butch over her support for a controversial bill introduced by French lawmaker Caroline Yadan that sought to address contemporary forms of antisemitism. The measure was withdrawn in April, only hours before it was scheduled for debate in the National Assembly, amid criticism that it could restrict criticism of Israel.

Butch and her lawyer argued that the incident went far beyond political protest.

“That evening, a line was crossed: the one separating protest from coercion, disagreement from intimidation, speech from violence,” they wrote in Le Monde. “It was no longer a matter of responding to an artist; she was being driven off the stage.”

They said Butch has for months been subjected to an organized campaign intended to make her professionally untouchable.

“The method is consistent: singling her out; discrediting her morally; relentlessly spreading defamatory accusations against her; demanding her removal from lineups; pressuring venues, festivals, local authorities, and the public; intimidating those who invite or support her; and turning every one of her trips into a threat, every concert into an ordeal, and every employer into a target,” they wrote.

“Then, when none of that suffices, coercion is brought to bear at the very venue where she is scheduled to perform.”

In a lengthy video posted on social media, Butch said she has endured antisemitism since childhood and that the abuse intensified after she signed an open letter denouncing antisemitism in France and rejecting attempts to hold Jews collectively responsible for Israeli government policy.

She was also targeted after participating in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, receiving death threats and a stream of antisemitic, sexist, fatphobic, and anti-LGBT abuse.

Butch described what happened in Grenoble as “intolerable.”

“The antisemitism that I have been subjected to on a daily basis and endured for years, ever since I was a child, and which has become even more intense after the Olympics — I’ve had enough,” she said.

“I’m not someone who resorts to violence. I am someone who advocates love, and that won’t change. I don’t condone any violence.”

Butch said antisemitism must be discussed as openly as other forms of bigotry.

“It’s an issue that affects us all and which, for me, is on par with racism, fatphobia, and LGBT-phobias,” she said.

“We need to talk about it and create safe spaces together. If we don’t have those spaces, we’re heading straight for defeat.”

She added that her work as a DJ is intended to bring people together rather than deepen political and social divisions.

“My job is to bring people together, to unite them, to get you dancing and ensure we’re united; ensure we love one another and carry on doing it, even if everything around us is causing anxiety,” she said.

“I hope you’ll try to understand, try to reestablish dialogue so we can talk again, because things are getting worse and worse and we can’t let things carry on like this.”

Nuñez condemned the attack on Butch, describing the perpetrators as “pro-Palestinian militants.”

“Antisemitism, intimidation, and pressure have no place in our Republic,” he wrote on X. “Preventing an artist from performing is an unacceptable violation of freedom of expression and creation.”

Prominent French record producer and DJ Bob Sinclar also expressed solidarity with Butch, calling the episode “unacceptable.”

“Clubbing is a sacred, blessed community where racism, homophobia, antisemitism, or all forms of discrimination are unacceptable,” he said in an Instagram video Monday. “We are here together to celebrate music and happiness. That is it. No judgment, but love.”