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The Paris Criminal Court on January 17 fined Eric Zemmour, the vocifeously anti-immigration and Islamophobic television pundit now running for presdient, for inciting hatred with anti-immigrants remarks.
The widly celebrated and denigrated far-right political commentator had attacked unaccompanied migrant minors, calling them “thieves,” “murderers,” and “rapists” on French television channel CNews.
Zemmour made the racist remarks in Septmeber 2020 as he made the case that immigrants and Islam are stripping France of its identity and desecrating its values.
Thirty organizations filed civil cases against the remarks by the right-wing commentator, claiming that his rhetoric was insulting and “inadmissible.” The organizations included SOS Racisme, the Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), and the Licra, as well as twenty departmental councils.
Following the organizations’ complaint, the far-right pundit turned politician was subject to a trial on November 17 of last year. But Zemmour did not attend the trial, with his lawyer saying he did not want to turn the court into a “political arena.”
When the news merged this week of the court’s verdict, Zemmour was quick to slam the “ideological and stupid condemnation.” Meanwhile, his lawyer, Olivier Pardo, stated that Zemmour would file an appeal with the court.
Read also: France’s Islamophobia: Targeting the Muslim Minority to Win Votes
On social media, Zemmour expressed his dissatisfaction with the court’s ruling, claiming that his freedom of speech was being violated. The journalist wrote that there was an “urgent need to drive ideology out of the courts.”
Zemmour has been to the court on several occasions for accusations of racist slurs, incitement to hatred, and contestation of crimes against humanity.
He was charged with inciting racial hate in 2010 after defending prejudice against Black and Arab people.
In February 2019, Zemmour again enraged many Franco-Moroccan figures when he said that “Migrants arriving here [France] from Moroccoare champions of terrorism and anti-Semitism.”
While his eventual candidacy for the French presidential elections made headlines late last year, Zemmour controversially said that if elected, he would ban non-French first names like Mohammed for making French culture and society less French.
