sick and about to leave France, he writes a letter of apology

Against all odds, comedian and polemicist Dieudonné “asked for forgiveness” from the Jewish community in a letter of apology published in the media “Israel Magazine”. He also mentions being sick and wanting to settle in Cameroon.

“I ask forgiveness”. Here is the title of the letter signed Dieudonné and published in the Franco-Israeli media “Israel Magazine“. So great is the surprise, The Parisian was able to obtain from the humorist that this column was well written by his hand. In this letter, he asks “forgiveness”. “Sorry to all those I may have hit, shocked, hurt through some of my artistic gestures,” he wrote.

The Franco-Cameroonian man has been condemned on numerous occasions by French justice for anti-Semitic insult or for contesting a crime against humanity. In 2009, for example, the French courts had sentenced him to 10,000 fines for having brought Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on stage. The case even went to the European Court of Human Rights, which in 2015 dismissed Dieudonné because “the European Convention on Human Rights does not protect Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitic shows”, replied the ECHR. Dieudonné had also been sentenced in Switzerland for Holocaust deniers.

Strong reactions after the apology letter from Dieudonné

Several personalities reacted to Dieudonné’s apology letter. Among them, unsurprisingly, people who found themselves confronted with him in court. And the least we can say is that Dieudonné’s mea culpa does not pass. Thus, the writer Rachel Khan, reviled by Dieudonné in a video in October 2020 – who had then estimated that she would remain “a poor negress at the end of the story” -, declared on Twitter, not without recalling the facts : “Convicted of insulting people on the grounds of ethnicity, race, religion. I.Soskin and R.Malka have informed me that he has appealed. Which seems to be the opposite of a pardon.”

In the columns of Point, Wednesday, January 11, she also returned to the reading of the letter from Dieudonné by Cyril Hanouna on the set of TPMP on Tuesday. “I thought it was crazy,” she said, decrying the fact that the show is “neither the place nor the setting” to do that. “Republican, I believe in the courts, not in the media, nor in Cyril Hanouna taking on the role of prosecutor”, she estimated, judging that “it is up to justice to draw the consequences” and that “he does not enough to have a letter distributed to exonerate oneself from it”. For her, “this will be settled in court. If Dieudonné wants to ask for forgiveness, let him come to court, before the representatives of law and justice.” Nearby Dauphiné liberated, Me Guenoun, who was the very first to take Dieudonné to court, also reacted to the polemicist’s letter of apology. He doesn’t accept the polemicist’s excuses either.

A letter as a farewell to the scene

Dieudonné Mbala Mbala therefore asks today for “pardon”. In this letter where he announces that he “wants to leave the stage in peace” because his health “invites him” to retire to Cameroon, he declared that his “ambition was to make everyone laugh, and the Jewish community part of my world”. And to put on paper some deep regrets over the past few years:

“I have been a comedian for 35 years. Much more than a job, this function was for me a real passion, a priesthood for which I devoted most of my life and my energy, often to the detriment of those closest to me, and in particular my seven children, whom I hardly saw growing up. I take the opportunity given to me here to ask their forgiveness and to tell them again how much I love them. I would also like to ask forgiveness from all those whom I may have offended, shocked, hurt through some of my artistic gestures. I am thinking in particular of my compatriots in the Jewish community, with whom I humbly recognize my ‘to be left to the game of one-upmanship,’ he wrote.

The director of Israel Magazine, André Darmon agreed to publish this letter because he “preferred that the humorist write what he had to say to those he had mistreated so much, the Jews, and to whom he wanted to ask forgiveness. “. He says further, wanting to let the public judge. The director of publication also explained to the Parisian to have been contacted by his friend Francis Lalanne so that Dieudonné and André Darmon meet, the latter preferred the written format.

A “sincere” approach?

Asked about Dieudonné’s letter, his lawyer Me Emmanuel Ludot responded Tuesday evening on the set of TPMP. The lawyer therefore defended a “sincere” apology letter. He also added on channel 8 of TNT that the comedian had had “a realization” for a few years of not “being able to laugh at everything”.

His retirement in Cameroon, because “not in good health” according to lawyer, questions. Did he leave to flee the taxman? The lawyer replied “that it was a point of honor that all the sentences be carried out and paid because you cannot ask for forgiveness and have debts”, he admitted. Yet last October, as revealed Release, it was his former companion Noémie Montagne who had filed a complaint against him for acts of “harassment” and “fraud”. He then risks up to five years in prison and 375,000 euros in fines according to article 313-1 of the penal code.

In 2021, the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment, two of which are firm, and a fine of 200,000 euros for tax evasion, money laundering, misuse of corporate assets or even fraudulent organization of his insolvency. Indeed, the advisers have recognized that the comedian had embezzled more than a million euros in unaccounted receipts during his shows at the Main d’Or theater in the 11th arrondissement of Paris.

An anti-Semitic show played in Switzerland a few days before the letter?

However, as revealed by the Swiss media RTS, despite being banned from playing his show in Switzerland, he allegedly lied about his identity to be able to play his show in the Uptown theatre. The director of the room explained to the media that he “rented the room for the presentation of a film, possibly with the participation of Frank Dubosc, but in no case for a show like this”. In this show played on Saturday January 7, Dieudonné would have interpreted “a sketch which makes fun of the Shoah”. Difficult to follow. As the publishing director of Israel Magazine told Le Parisien, time will tell if Dieudonné was sincere.

A show project fell through with Jean-Marie Bigard

Jean-Marie Bigard had plans to go on stage with Dieudonné and do a show “Foutu pour Foutu”. However, the 68-year-old comedian would have been afraid of no longer being able to participate in the show Big heads on RTL if he collaborated with Dieudonné. At the beginning of August 2022, Jean-Marie Bigard, therefore decided to end his collaboration with Dieudonné, “given the pressures” he would have suffered, he wrote on social networks.

In November 2022, Dieudonné released a book retracing the history of this canceled show entitled “Bigard and Dieudo: logbook of a forbidden show”. In the synopsis, Dieudonné says to return “to the pressures which forced an artist such as Jean-Marie Bigard to lie down”.

According to a survey of Release, when the ticket office opened, this collaboration between Jean Marie Bigard and Dieudonné “did not exist” but non-refundable tickets were still sold. Liberation therefore speaks of a scam. Thus, in contact with the newspaper, Jean-Marie Bigard would have spoken of “theft”.