“Qu’un sang un”: singer Nina Tonji creates controversy by modifying the lyrics of La Marseillaise before the NFL match at the Stade de France

The change did not go unnoticed. During the first NFL match, the largest American football championship in the world, organized at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday October 25, between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints, French artist Nina Tonji, chosen to perform La Marseillaise before kick-off, modified the words of the national anthem.

She thus sang "that a united blood waters our furrows", instead of "that an impure blood" in the original version, composed in 1792 by the officer Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

Enough to widely react on social networks, where many people denounced a “lack of respect” from the artist towards the French national anthem. “A shame”, “a scandal”, many Internet users wrote, while others wondered about the reason for this rewriting. For the moment, Nina Tonji has not explained this change in words, just like the NFL.