“Dirty Frenchman”, a racial insult? Judges’ hesitations in the face of “anti-White racism” – L’Express

The controversy machine is launched. Anti-White racism is disconcerting because it disrupts our vision of discriminatory hatred. In this case, the victim is not part of a historically stigmatized community, she is targeted for her belonging to the majority part of the French population. “Trapped debate”, notes Daniel Sabbagh, research director at Sciences Po, who devoted an article to the subject in the journal Powers, in 2022. The far right has long exploited the idea of ​​a latent war waged against “native French”; Eric Zemmour speaks of “francocide”. Conversely, some sociologists deny any validity to the concept. “Do we need to call it racism even if someone would call me ‘dirty white guy’?” contested Eric Fassin, researcher at Paris-VIII, on France Culture, in 2018. According to this academic, “ anti-White racism does not exist for the social sciences”, due to lack of discrimination affecting this ethnic group. And for the judges? Criminal actions have had “limited success”, euphemistically Mathias Möschel, associate professor at the Central European University in Vienna, and author of an article on “the legal construction of the notion of anti-white racism in France” , in 2022. The researcher identified a handful of convictions on this ground; in many cases, judges hesitate to recognize the aggravating circumstance of anti-White racism.

The archetypal case is that of anti-White remarks made alongside a long list of insults. Sometimes it is a “dirty Frenchman”, the qualification of which turns out to be even more delicate. In this case, racism is almost never retained. “Bastard, big bastard, son of a bitch, motherfucker, fuck your race, when I go out, I will find you and I will kill you, you will die, big pig, dirty Frenchman,” threatens a man transported by a firefighter to the hospital, October 8, 2006 in Avesnes-sur-Helpe (North). He admitted the facts, the Douai Court of Appeal condemned him for contempt, but the racial motive was not noted. Another case, in Guyana, on June 8, 2016, a man disturbed at his brother’s house by the police, showered them with insults. “Get out; colonialists, slavers, dirty white people, go home,” he declared according to the police. The Cayenne Court of Appeal condemns him for contempt, but the Court of Cassation annuls the judgment because the man did not recognize the insult “dirty whites”, only “colonialists” and “slavers”. In any case, the racial motive for the contempt was never noted, even by the court of appeal.

There are really only two cases in which anti-White racism was used. In the first, the attacker is also white, but described himself as an “Arab type” before the investigating judge. In September 2010, he beat another man with an accomplice and stabbed another man on the RER platform at Gare du Nord. “Dirty White”, “dirty Frenchman”, “white guy”, hear the victim and several witnesses. The criminal court ruled out racist intention, but the court of appeal noted it. She took into account the aggravating circumstance of racism and sentenced the defendant to three years in prison on January 21, 2014. On June 9, 2014, a ticket check went wrong in the TER Mâcon-Lyon. A traveler intervenes, he is insulted. “Dirty Frenchman, dirty white man,” a 22-year-old young man told him. He was sentenced by the Lyon Court of Appeal to three months in prison for racial insult.

In these two cases, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) became a civil party, under the leadership of its then president, Alain Jakubowicz. A decision already commented on and contested at the time. “Not everyone liked it but I felt that there was no need to distinguish racism where the law does not distinguish. I did not want to leave the law and the evidence to the extreme right”, recalls the lawyer. However, he recognizes that “socially, the phenomenon is not the same” depending on whether the racism is directed against whites or against a minority community and calls above all to focus on attacks: “For an insult, I don’t know “if it is important that it is qualified as racist. In attacks, on the other hand, it is absolutely necessary that the aggravating circumstance of anti-White racism can be retained.”

In 2014, a rape case in Evry-Courcouronnes caused unease. On March 30, an 18-year-old girl was approached at the exit of the station, then tied up, raped, beaten and tortured in a park for two hours by four attackers. In police custody, the four perpetrators explain that they asked the victim about his origins. An accomplice claims to have attacked her “because she is French and he doesn’t like French women”. The “leader”, of Turkish nationality, declared to him in police custody: “When I get out, I will screw France”. The aggravating circumstance of racism is not accepted by the prosecution.

More than ten years ago, magistrates today act under the heavy gaze of public opinion and pressure groups. On September 27, a 14-year-old teenager threatened a police officer at the Asnières police station, on the sidelines of police custody: “If I meet you outside, you’re nothing, dirty white guy!” Initially, the minor is prosecuted only for contempt of person holding public authority and rebellion. Two days later, Le Figaro devotes an article to the absence of prosecutions for racism. Several sites linked to the far right, such as Fdesouche, followed by 226,000 accounts on Twitter, are reporting. On October 5, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office declared that it was finally retaining the racial contempt, “taking the time to have a more in-depth knowledge of the procedure and to assess the facts”, it declared to the Figaro. “Judges are sensitive to what is said in the newspapers, in society, they do not live in a bubble,” points out Mathias Möschel, convinced that public debate can develop jurisprudence on the issue. A sign that these reflections are agitating all of Western Europe, the Hungarian Supreme Court recently recognized racism against “ethnic” Hungarians, notes the academic. The issue, however, has not yet reached the German courts.

In France, recognition of anti-White racism remains cautious. Compared to freedom of expression, it is minimal. In 2017-2018, the case Fuck France, track by the rap group Zep, showed it. “The nazillons are let loose/The uninhibited cads/Carte blanche for the big rednecks/Who have the hatred of foreigners,” the singer rapped virulently. In the piece, it was about, among other things, the “little native Gauls”, the “big idiots” in the “stinking, racist and murderous” country or even the “all white asses” of the National Assembly.

No racism in the words, because “native white French people” do not constitute a group of people protected by the law on freedom of expression, the court of appeal ruled. On February 28, 2017, the Court of Cassation affirmed conversely that “in any hypothesis, so-called ‘native’ white French people constitute a group of people designated because of their origin or their belonging to a nation and a ethnicity or race. But Zep is relaxed. The judges believe that it did not exceed the limits of “debate of general interest”.

In 1972, the Court of Cassation recognized the guilt of the Caledonian activist Nidoïsh Naisseline, for “defamation” and “excitement to hatred” towards Caledonian whites, compared to the Nazis, recalls the historian Emmanuel Debono in his work Racism in the courtroom (Humensis), in 2019. But the activist was ultimately not convicted, due to formal defects. Same outcome in the Nick Conrad affair, the author of the piece Hang the whites. “I go into nurseries, I kill white babies […]hang their parents, push them aside to pass the time”, sang the rapper. He was sentenced to a suspended fine of 5,000 euros for provocation to crime, at first instance. On September 23, 2021, the Court of Appeal of Paris completely canceled the procedure against him, for a formal defect.