(Paris) The prosecution requested a fine of 10,000 euros on Wednesday, with the possibility of imprisonment in the event of non-payment, against the French far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour, tried in Paris for his controversial remarks on unaccompanied minor migrants.
“In view of the violence of the words and the context in which they were made”, and the fact that Mr. Zemmour “already has a judicial past”, the prosecutor asked for “a hundred days, a fine of one hundred euros”.
The trial of the putative presidential candidate opened on Wednesday morning in his absence. The 63-year-old former journalist is summoned to appear for complicity in provoking racial hatred and racial insult.
In September 2020 on the CNews television channel, the columnist said about unaccompanied foreign minors: “They have nothing to do here, they are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that’s all they do. are, they must be sent back and they must not even come ”.
On Wednesday, he did not appear at the hearing to “prevent the judicial compound from turning into a continuous news TV studio”, his lawyer, Mr.e Olivier Pardo.
Numerous associations, including SOS Racisme and the Human Rights League (LDH), as well as some twenty departmental councils, unaccompanied minors being supported indirectly by the latter, have become civil parties.
“We are trying to make believe that these hearings are linked to the status of putative candidate of Mr. Zemmour”, said at the bar the president of SOS Racisme, Dominique Sopo.
But anti-racist associations are “not used very much” to prosecute presidential candidates. “What motivates is the nature of the words of great violence from a person who is testing the Republic” and who has “an influence”, he insists.
“Eric Zemmour’s speech is dangerous because there are morons […] ready to take action, ”says the president of La Maison des potes, Samuel Thomas, also a civil party in the trial.
“Today we are objectively in a moment of hegemony of racist thought”, says Me Arié Alimi, first among the civil parties to plead for the LDH. Mr. Zemmour “is intended to run for president, and there is a possibility that he will become President of the Republic”, he insists.
The positions taken by the far-right pamphleteer Eric Zemmour have earned him about fifteen lawsuits over the past ten years. Several times released, he was twice convicted of incitement to hatred.
The former journalist has not yet declared himself a candidate, but, according to close sources, he should do so before a first electoral assembly envisaged in early December.
His conference in London canceled
Earlier in the day, a conference that Eric Zemmour was to hold at the Royal Institution in London on Friday was canceled by the latter after “thorough examination” of the event, but the polemicist indicated that he would nevertheless go to the British capital.
Mr. Zemmour began a tour in France in mid-October to promote his book France has not said its last word, appearing at “literary conferences” that resemble electoral assemblies.
This time he is due in London on Friday.
But, “after a thorough examination of the file, we made the decision to cancel this private event,” a spokesperson for the Royal Institution told AFP on Wednesday. It is not a problem of financing, it was clarified.
The patron of the Royal Institution is the Prince of Wales.
According to the entourage of the undeclared presidential candidate, the Royal Institution, “a commercial company for the rental of spaces for events of all types, decided 48 hours before Eric Zemmour’s conference to cancel, by email, the reservation that we had contracted together for two weeks ”.
“We had paid the entire bill, given the technical details, […] sent the invitations to the French community in London, accredited the media ”details the entourage of the polemicist in a message to journalists.
This decision “is incomprehensible in terms of commercial law, it is a major fault. And above all scandalous in terms of method. Unless you want to knowingly sabotage the moment, ”we added.
“In the country of” freedom of speech “(freedom of expression, editor’s note), the situation is quite funny”, according to the same source.
However, Eric Zemmour “will hold his conference to the French community at 6 pm”, Friday in London, in another place which will be specified later.
Mr. Zemmour had already suffered several setbacks, in France, during his promotional tour for his book, when several book signing sessions or conferences had been canceled.