Gojira respond to the “satanic” comments made about their Olympics opening ceremony performance

As well as deservedly basking in the incredible success of their Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony performance on Friday, Gojira have also had to defend themselves against claims that their showing was “satanic”.

The Landes metal kings joined forces with opera singer Marina Viotti to present a heavy version of the French revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira on July 26 – with the help of striking images of a beheaded Marie Antoinette, and of course a whole lot of pyro.

However, certain corners of the internet decided that the whole thing was wrong, with infamous social media personality Andrew Tate sharing the performance and writing that, “Satanists control the west and they show you that they worship the devil.” Others referred to “satanic rituals”, a “disgusting satanic circus” and it being “pure evil” (which is hilarious given that in 2021 Joe Duplantier told us, “Since the beginning of our band, we have promoted compassion vs. competition and love vs. hate”).

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the frontman was asked about some of these “satanic” accusations such as Andrew Tate’s, to which Joe responded, “It’s none of that. It’s French history. It’s French charm, you know, beheaded people, red wine, and blood all over the place – it’s romantic, it’s normal. There’s nothing satanic (laughs).

“France is a country that made a separation between the state and religion during the revolution,” the musician continues. “And it’s something very important, very dear to the foundation of republican France. We call it laïcité. It’s when the state is not religious anymore, so therefore it’s free in terms of expression and symbolism. It’s all about history and facts. We don’t look too close closely at symbolism in terms of religion.”

Joe also said he was going to use this new wave of attention on Gojira for good (naturally), with the band very much focused on their performance in Paris but now wanting to promote their beliefs after the fact.

“We were very, very honoured to be part of this,” he said. “Not for one second did We think, ‘We’re gonna disrupt this or use this to hijack it and spread the message.’ We’re musicians; we have a career. We’re extremely honoured, and we thought it was a great thing for the metal community. So we simply played the game and did our best to make it look fabulous. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have things to say, and I am going I’m simply going to use the buzz around the band to maybe spread a few ideas here and there.”

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