Presidential candidate Éric Zemmour was sentenced on Monday to a fine of 10,000 euros for incitement to hatred after remarks on unaccompanied minors in 2020. He announced that he would appeal the decision of the criminal court.
Éric Zemmour was not in court to hear the judgment. The offending remarks date back to September 29, 2020. During the program “Face à l’info” on the CNews channel after an attack in front of the former premises of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the far-right presidential candidate and then columnist, said that unaccompanied minor migrants “ have nothing to do here, they’re thieves, they’re murderers, they’re rapists, that’s all they are, they should be sent back and they shouldn’t even come. »
By finding him guilty of incitement to hatred and condemning him to a fine of 10,000 euros, the court followed the requisitions of the prosecution who had estimated that ” the limits of freedom of expression were crossed » by these remarks qualified as « contemptuous and offensive », sign of a « hatred of the immigrant population.
“Ideological and stupid”
Éric Zemmour’s lawyer had pleaded to him that his client was defending a political position there. This condemnation is not solidly argued legally and even a ” deviation “, reacted Me Pardo since, according to him” unaccompanied minors are neither a race nor a nation. He will appeal.
In a press release, the principal concerned denounced a conviction “ ideological and stupid “. ” It is the condemnation of a free spirit by a judicial system invaded by ideologues “, he wrote. ” We want the end of this system which every day tightens the tourniquet a little more on freedom of expression and democratic debate. This system manufactures crime of opinion in an industrial way. It is urgent to chase the ideology from the courts added Eric Zemmour. In the fall, already, the one who is today credited with 13% of the voting intentions in the polls said he wanted ” remove power (from) counter-powers ” like ” justice, media, minorities “.
I have a busy legal agenda because they want to demonize me. They want, by justice, to silence me. Because I am the only candidate for the presidential election to ask this major question of immigration, the identity of France and the “great replacement”. The French know what they are going through. They know what they are going through. And I will say not only do I protect my people, the French people, but I am the most humanist.
Third conviction
Arié Alimi, lawyer for the League for Human Rights, welcomed an important decision which shows that insulting an immigrant population in this way is indeed racism. He also welcomed the sentence of 3,000 euros from the director of publication of CNews, because the thirty civil party associations had insisted on the need to also condemn the channel, responsible according to them for doing this type of ” hate speech “, his ” Commercial property “.
This is Éric Zemmour’s third conviction for incitement to hatred. The far-right candidate must be tried on appeal Thursday for contesting a crime against humanity after having argued, in October 2019, again on CNews, that Marshal Pétain had ” Safe French Jews.
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