PARIS - Irish rap group Kneecap, one of whose members faces a British terror charge for allegedly supporting Hezbollah, are to perform outside Paris on Sunday, despite objections from French Jewish groups and government officials.

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The local authorities have also withdrawn their subsidies for the music festival where the trio will play -- the annual Rock en Seine festival, held in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud -- after organizers kept the controversial band on the program for their slot.

Strongly backing the Palestinian cause and bitterly criticizing Israel, the group from Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, have turned concerts into political events.

Liam O’Hanna, 27, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged in England in May accused of displaying a flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah during a London concert in November.

They played a closely scrutinized concert at the Glastonbury Festival in June, where Chara declared: “Israel are war criminals.”

The group later missed playing at the Sziget Festival in Budapest after being barred from entering the country by the Hungarian authorities, a close ally of Israel.

Kneecap, who also focus on Irish republicanism, are controversial within the UK and Ireland, more than two-and-a-half-decades after the peace agreement that aimed to end the conflict over the status of Northern Ireland.

The group takes its name from the deliberate shooting of the limbs, known as “kneecapping”, carried out by Irish Republicans as punishment attacks during the decades of unrest.

‘Confident’

Kneecap to play Paris concert in defiance of objections

We are confident that the group will perform in the correct manner,” Matthieu Ducos, director of Rock en Seine, told AFP ahead of the festival.

The municipality of Saint-Cloud for the first time withdrew its 40,000-euro (,000) subsidy from Rock en Seine.

The wider Ile-de-France region that includes Paris also cancelled its funding for the 2025 edition.

However, such moves do not jeopardize the viability of the festival, whose budget was between 16 million and 17 million euros this year.

“They are desecrating the memory of the 50 French victims of Hamas on October 7, as well as all the French victims of Hezbollah,” said Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), calling for the concert to be canceled.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said vigilance would be required against “any comments of an antisemitic nature, apology for terrorism or incitement to hatred” at the event.