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Hollande’s rap video goes viral

Clea Caulcutt
Clea Caulcutt - [email protected]
Hollande’s rap video goes viral

French presidential campaigns are often conservative affairs, but a new campaign video shows Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande hanging with youths in the French banlieues to the rap track "Niggas in Paris" by Jay-Z and Kanye West. 

 

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François Hollande’s campaign took an unusual turn this week when his team released the video, complete with a rap backing track, of their candidate visiting the impoverished suburbs of Paris. 

The footage features the Socialist politician, often called Mr Normal, shaking hands with youths in Gare du Nord, a train station known for occasional outbursts of gang violence. 

Hollande then boards a train and travels to several poor suburban towns including Clichy-sous-Bois and Aulnay-sous-Bois, where unemployement and poverty are rife. 

Throughout the clip, Hollande’s visit is puntuated with youths cheering "Big up François Hollande!" and "Francois Hollande, you’re gonna come through" or "François Hollande Insh’Allah".

The unusual clip uses all the codes of music videos, including fast editing, flashes and fisheye filming. It has already been viewed close to 83,000 times on youtube.

However it appears the video producers did not ask Jay-Z and Kanye West’s permission to use their track "Niggas in Paris", French radio Europe 1 reports. 

 See the video here:

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