After the release of Eric Zemmour for anti-Islam remarks, the general prosecutor appeals in cassation
After the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, on September 8, to release the polemicist Eric Zemmour from prosecution for insult and incitement to hatred, the general prosecutor appealed in cassation, we learned, Tuesday September 14, from a judicial source. At first instance, the putative candidate for the 2022 presidential election was fined 10,000 euros for such remarks stigmatizing Islam and immigration.
During the “right-wing convention” organized by relatives of the former member of the National Front (now National Rally) Marion Maréchal, on September 28, 2019, he gave a speech criticizing immigrants “Colonizers” and an “Islamization of the street”. The 63-year-old journalist also described the veil and the djellaba as “The uniforms of an occupying army”.
“The offenses prosecuted are not constituted”
In the reasons for its judgment, which Agence France-Presse (AFP) was able to consult, the court of appeal ruled that“None of the words pursued target all Africans, immigrants or Muslims but only fractions of these groups”. “There is no justification for statements targeting a group of people as a whole because of their origin or their belonging or not belonging to a particular ethnic group, nation, race or religion., added the court, from where it follows that the prosecuted offenses are not constituted. “
Eric Zemmour’s lawyer, Me Olivier Pardo, had qualified this decision of“Huge victory”, while the anti-racist associations civil parties had said “Flabbergasted” and had announced their decision to appeal, too, in cassation.
