Mahmoud Mabrouk is a classical Arabic singer from Gaza who has been given the prospect of a fresh start outside the war-torn enclave with a one-way ticket to France to settle with his wife and toddler to work on his art.
“I look forward every day, every minute, I count each second, [at the idea] of going to France,” Mr Mabrouk, 29, told The National. “I want to organise concerts, work on myself – why not, learn a musical instrument.”
But his application, like that of more than 50 other Gazans, has been shelved indefinitely. The French Foreign Ministry says security conditions need to improve for him to come to France as part of a state-run scholarship programme designed for artists and scientists in war zones.
A ceasefire in Gaza was struck in October, but low-intensity warfare continues.
Advocates for the programme say the situation is complicated. The French government appears reluctant to restart evacuations after an anti-Semitism row erupted last summer over one of the Gazan evacuees. Israel controls exit permits for Gazans.
Unique scholarship
Since the start of the Gaza war, a few hundred Gazans have been evacuated to Europe, largely for medical reasons. In France, a programme for artists and scientists, named Pause, has enabled the departure of 21 Gazans and their families for a total of 72 people, in addition to 55 students on a scholarship from the French government.
The Pause programme allows artists and researchers from conflict-affected regions, including Gaza, Ukraine and Iran, to move to France for a year or two on a special talent visa.
What makes it unique in Europe is that laureates can bring their families. During their stay, they are hosted by cultural or academic structures across France. They have the possibility to remain if they switch to a work visa.
The problem is that Pause for Gazans is mothballed, Glenn Salic, deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, told The National. It may resume this summer, but only for single Gazans without families because of constraints linked to the conflict.
“We are very much willing to resume the Pause programme and ensure that more people from Gaza are able to leave Gaza and come to France,” Mr Salic said. “In order for this to happen, several conditions need to be fulfilled – security conditions, conditions related to neighbouring countries, and at the moment we are still in the process of making sure they are fulfilled.”
Mr Mabrouk refuses to lose hope. “You can’t give up. You have to try to keep the passion that is inside you. You have to sing. You have to do things you love, you have to go out,” he said.
'Absurd and surreal'
On Thursday, prominent French artists organised a fundraiser in a theatre outside Paris to help him fund his life in France – if he makes it. Those involved included Renaud, a singer of popular French ballads who is also known for his left-wing political activism.
Also present was a Palestinian singer from East Jerusalem, Bashar Murad, who sang the poem If I must die, by the Gazan writer Refaat Al Areer. The poem went viral worldwide after Mr Al Areer was killed in Israeli shelling in December 2023.
“The world is constantly talking about Palestinians only when we're dying or being killed. It forgets we're actually human beings; we have regular dreams and hopes and we just want to live normal lives like other normal peoplen” Mr Murad told The National.
“We’re here making these videos and interviews and we have all these big artists, and it’s amazing they’re coming together,” he added. “Then we have Mahmoud in Gaza sitting on his phone watching this and praying that this will actually work. It’s kind of like an absurd and surreal thing.”
In 2019, Mr Mabrouk was accepted to take part in Ahla Sawt, an Arabic version of the song competition The Voice – but could not get a visa to travel to Lebanon. Nevertheless, he often sang in concerts in Gaza. His life was full of music. He would break into impromptu songs on the Gaza corniche and in outdoor cafes, and sang to his wife at their wedding.
That all ended when the Gaza war started in October 2023. To live, he turned to selling coffee and tea in the street. He would still record himself singing. “I felt like humming a little,” he said in a caption of a video published in October on his Instagram account.
His plight is as much linked to administrative hurdles as to security issues in Gaza, argues Marion Slitine, a French anthropologist and founder of Maan. Mr Mabrouk's application was green-lit in September by the artistic and scientific committee of the Pause programme at the College de France, one of the country's most prestigious research venues.
Gazans blocked
But the ministries involved in overseeing the programme – Foreign Ministry, Culture, Higher Education and Interior – then blocked the procedure. The Pause programme had to inform host institutions that they would not approve his participation. “The pretext was that evacuations on the ground would be too complex,” Ms Slitine said. Another 54 people are in the same situation.
In the end, only 12 Gazans were officially accepted in the Pause programme – and they are all single. “The French government, particularly the Foreign Ministry, is taking a hypocritical and discriminatory position towards Palestinians from Gaza,” Ms Slitine told The National, “knowing that other European countries have been evacuating Gazans in higher numbers than France.”
Legal challenges brought against the state by collectives of lawyers, academics and cultural figures are under way to denounce these acts of “flagrant discrimination”, Ms Slitine said.
The Foreign Ministry says Mr Mabrouk is still considered a simple applicant. “Given the temporary suspension of the processing of applications from Gaza for the programme, Mr Mabrouk’s application has not been accepted to date, and he has not been selected as a laureate,” diplomatic sources told The National.
“Current constraints, particularly due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, are significantly slowing the evacuation of additional candidates and, at this stage, making it impossible to evacuate their eligible dependents,” they said. They did not elaborate when asked why it was harder to evacuate families after a ceasefire was struck.
Mr Mabrouk has just one plea for French officials: to remember he and other artists in Gaza are civilians who want to be able to exercise their talent. “We love life. That’s our story. Music is our goal,” he said.
