The polemicist and host of Sud Radio André Bercoff, the owner of the conspiracy site France Soir Xavier Azalbert and the controversial essayist Idriss Aberkane are the target of a complaint for massive cyberharassment of a scientific YouTuber, AFP learned this Monday, May 6 from source close to the file.
This complaint was filed on May 3 against
Contacted by AFP, André Bercoff castigated “grotesque” accusations. “I have never cyberharassed, it’s ridiculous. I had to meet (Mr. Durand) twice at debates,” he continued, denouncing “a thought police”.
A “wave of hatred”
In his complaint, of which AFP was aware, Thomas Durand denounces “a massive and particularly violent harassment campaign”, counting “3,200 tweets that are threatening, insulting, humiliating and sometimes of a homophobic nature” from June 18, 2021 to April 27 2023. He accuses Idriss Aberkane, André Bercoff and Xavier Azalbert of having “actively participated” by “initiating” or “fueling the wave of hatred” which was sweeping over him, through tweets about him or republications of tweets humiliating.
Many anonymous accounts attack Thomas Durand: “Asshole, toilet brush, idiot […]”, or “are you still going out with your face uncovered in the street?” These multiple messages have “resulted in a deterioration of the living conditions” of the Youtuber, accuses his complaint.
“The singularly massive cyberharassment campaign” of which Thomas Durand claims to be a victim “is part of a new and worrying criminal movement that the Mila and Berdah cases have brought to light,” commented his lawyer, Me Mathieu Lanteri.
Magali Berdah, the former popess of influencers in France, obtained prison sentences for 28 Internet users in March. In the case of young Mila, harassed after publishing several controversial videos on Islam in 2020, six people were sentenced on appeal in May 2022 to suspended prison sentences.
For Me Lanteri, “it is essential to further draw the attention of the judicial authority to this new form of harassment”, the offense of cyberharassment having been created in 2018. Co-founder of the YouTube channel “La Tronche en bias”, Thomas Durand, 36, presents himself as a content creator whose aim is to promote critical thinking and zetetics, offering rational explanations to so-called paranormal phenomena.