"Will continue to dance"

Next top politician in favor of Gigi D’Agostino

State Secretary for Youth Claudia Plakolm jumps to the aid of Gigi D'Agostino and party colleague Johanna Mikl-Leitner.

(Bild: APA/Eva Manhart)

After Lower Austria's Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner called on radio stations to "reconsider well-intentioned self-censorship" in connection with the ban on Gigi D'Agostino's song "L'Amour Toujours" in the "Krone" newspaper on Sunday, State Secretary for Youth Claudia Plakolm has also taken a clear stance. For her, "L'Amour Toujours" is "a song of togetherness". 

Videos showing drunken revellers chanting racist slogans to the beat of the song caused a media outcry and public outrage around Gigi D'Agostino's song "L'amour toujours". Radio stations even famously removed the song from their programs as a result. However, kronehit has now canceled the cancel culture! The popular radio station is playing the love song despite the abuse by racist chants. The station says it is unacceptable that an artist who can do nothing about it has to pay for it.

D'Agostino himself clearly distanced himself from this misuse. Lower Austria's Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) also commented on the discussions on Sunday. "Many young people who organize summer parties for their clubs on a voluntary basis are now unsettled. They ask me whether they are still allowed to play this song or whether it will put them in the right corner. And you can really take that worry away from them," the head of the province told the "Krone" newspaper. Her ÖVP party colleague and State Secretary for Youth Claudia Plakolm is now taking the same line.

"We have room for so many different opinions and ways of life in this country, from the Vorarlbergers to the Burgenlanders, from the Freedom Party to the Greens and from the Goldhauben to the e-sports club. But we have no room for right-wing radicals and anti-Semites. We have no room for people who live division instead of inclusion. And we certainly won't let such people take away a song that was played in the best moments of our youth and with which we share many good memories," explains the ÖVP hopeful on Instagram.

For her, "L'Amour Toujours" is a song of togetherness. "And it will stay that way. We will continue to dance and celebrate to it without having to have a guilty conscience," explains the 29-year-old.