FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS — Kendji Girac, 27, is a successful singer in France later winning the talent show «The Voice» in 2014, when he was appreciated and supported by the pop star Mika as a coach. Of Catalan gypsy origins, influenced by flamenco, he reached first place in the charts with the album Kendji and the song Gypsy colourand has been a familiar face on French TV and concert halls ever since.
This night he was seriously injured by a gunshot, and many fans anxiously followed the news about his health condition, which seemed dramatic, for several hours. The latest news is more reassuring, the singer is no longer in danger of dying, but now the question of what happened during the night opens up, also because his first story appears confusing. Which relaunches in these hours on social media, alongside messages of support and wishes for a speedy recovery, also the stereotypes and discriminatory comments about gens du voyageas “people whose traditional habitat consists of mobile residences” are indicated in France from an administrative point of view, a deliberately vague notion which includes Roma, gypsies and the nomadic population in general.
The accident, as Kendji Girac defines it, happened in a reception area gens du voyage in the municipality of Biscarrosse, not far from Bordeaux. In the night between Sunday and Monday the singer was pierced by a bullet which hit him in the chest. He was admitted to Bordeaux hospitalwhere he was declared out of danger at the end of Monday morning.
Having regained consciousness, Kendji Girac provided a reconstruction that does not seem convincing. He says he injured himself while handling a gun which he had bought the day before at a flea market in La Teste-de-Buch, a nearby town. Investigators then found a gun without a magazineperhaps the same (but forensic confirmation is still missing), in a hedge not far from the accident site. The police are carrying out investigations on Kendji Girac and also on her partner, looking for traces of gunpowder, to verify whether the woman was present at the time of the wounding, and to establish who fired the shot. «It’s not a settling of scores, just an accident – said his uncle Emilio -. The night before there was a party, and then we started playing the guitar, calmly.”
Kendji Girac has sold millions of copies of his records, he is very popular on YouTube thanks also to his commitment to the tours of Enfoiresthe French celebrities who periodically come together to finance the Restos du coeur which distribute meals to the poor. Fans hope that the incident does not ruin the reputation and the career of their hero.
