French media have reported that public prosecutors have initiated a formal inquiry into the death threats and cyber-harassment directed at Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
This investigation marks the second probe into online abuse faced by individuals associated with the ceremony; earlier this week, authorities also began looking into death, torture, and rape threats aimed at DJ and LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Butch.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Jolly lodged a complaint on Tuesday, asserting that he had received threatening and insulting messages via social media that targeted his sexual orientation and inaccurately assumed Israeli heritage.
Potential charges from this investigation, which will be overseen by officials from the French judiciary’s online hate division, could include defamation, public abuse, and threats of death based on origin and sexual orientation, the office noted.
Reports indicate that a significant portion of the online harassment originated in English, with a notable number of messages appearing to come from the United States. Although Jolly identifies as gay, he is neither Jewish nor has any direct ties to Israel.
In response, the Paris 2024 organizing committee expressed to Agence-France Presse its “strong condemnation of the threats and harassment that the authors and artists of the opening ceremony, including Thomas Jolly, have endured.”
Additionally, the committee, which offered apologies on Sunday for any offense caused by certain elements of the ceremony, expressed its “full support to Thomas Jolly and to the authors and artists involved in the ceremony, in light of the assaults directed at them.”
One of the performance’s tableaux, called Festivity, showcased Butch and a group of drag queens, featuring a semi-naked singer embodying Dionysus seated in a bowl of fruit. Some Christian and conservative critics perceived the scene as a mockery of the Last Supper.
Jolly has consistently asserted that Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, which depicts Jesus’s final meal with his Apostles, was not the scene’s inspiration; he instead stated that it represented a pagan feast of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus.
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French bishops expressed regret over the “excesses and provocations” of the tableau, deeming it “a mockery of Christianity.” The criticism from far-right politicians in France and the religious right in the United States has been particularly vehement.
Art historians have suggested that this tableau closely resembles the Feast of the Gods, a work by 17th-century Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert, although that piece itself is recognized as a “mythological reinterpretation” of the Last Supper.
