NANTERRE, France: A town that hosts one of France’s biggest pop festivals announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing its subsidy to the event because controversial Irish rappers Kneecap had been booked to play.

British police are investigating Kneecap’s lead singer under a terror offense after he was accused of displaying a Hezbollah flag at a concert last year. The Lebanese militant group is banned in Britain.

Police said they are also investigating videos allegedly showing calls for the death of British lawmakers.

The Paris suburb of Saint Cloud approved a 40,000 euro ($46,500) subsidy this year for the Rock En Seine festival that last year attracted 180,000 people over four days.

The town council said the money had been agreed before the lineup was announced. Kneecap are to appear at the event on August 24. Saint Cloud said its council had now voted to withdraw the subsidy.

A statement said the town “finances, within its means, a cultural and artistic project. On the other hand it does not finance political action, nor demands, and even less calls to violence, such as calls to kill lawmakers, whatever their nationality.”

The town said it respects the festival’s “freedom” to decide its lineup and had not sought “any kind of negotiation with the aim of influencing the program.”

Kneecap have been taken off the bill for festivals in Scotland and Germany this year because of the controversy.

The group have said they are committed to the Palestinian cause but have denied any terrorism connection. Singer Liam O’Hanna, who appears under the name Mo Chara, has condemned the charges against him as political. O’Hanna is to appear in court again four days before the Rock En Seine show.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked fellow Republicans critical of his administration’s handling of the case of dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On social media and in the Oval Office, Trump lashed out at allies he said were falling for a “hoax” pushed by Democrats, who “unlike Republicans ... stick together like glue.”
Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died by suicide in jail in 2019. He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was dismissed after his death.
Some of Trump’s most loyal followers were enraged when the Trump administration last week reversed course on its pledge to release documents it had suggested contained major revelations about Epstein and his alleged clientele.
“It’s all been a big hoax,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans, and foolish Republicans fall into the net and so they try and do the Democrats’ work.”
On Truth Social earlier in the day, Trump said of Republicans raising concerns about the case: “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” The backlash over the Epstein case has laid bare tensions inside Trump’s coalition and is testing one of Trump’s most enduring political strengths: his ability to command loyalty and control the narrative across the right.
A former Trump adviser, Mike Flynn, on Wednesday said on X that the matter was not a hoax. “With my strongest recommendation, please gather your team and figure out a way to move past this,” he said.
The Justice Department last week concluded there was “no incriminating client list” or any evidence that Epstein may have blackmailed prominent people. The review also confirmed prior findings by the FBI that Epstein killed himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial, and that his death was not the result of a criminal act such as murder.
Some House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have continued to call for the Justice Department to release more Epstein documents. But Republicans have blocked efforts by Democratic lawmakers to push measures that would force the agency to make those documents public.
Trump, who knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s, on Wednesday again defended Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the matter and said she could release any credible documents related to the case.
“Whatever’s credible, she can release,” he told reporters. “If a document’s there that’s credible, she can release. I think it’s good.”
But he was also eager to move past the issue.
“I’d rather talk about the success we have with the economy,” he said.