Far-right essayist Alain Soral fined 12,000 euros for racial slur

The far-right writer Alain Soral was sentenced on Tuesday, May 31, to a fine of 12,000 euros for racial slur against Farida Belghoul, a former teacher who had launched in 2013 a boycott movement of the school that she accused of teaching a “gender theory”. Farida Belghoul had filed a complaint in July 2018 after the publication on Youtube of a video in which Alain Soral, whose real name is Alain Bonnet, answered questions by telephone.

To an Internet user who questioned him about “infiltrators” in his organization Equality and Reconciliation, he had notably declared: “It will also allow me to say that we have had traitors of all kinds… eh… but a lot, I am sorry to regret it, of North Africans, there is nevertheless a propensity for treason among the North Africans, no doubt a past of colonial submission”. He then notably cited the name of Farida Belghoul, who had approached the far-right polemicist in 2013 and 2014.

For the court, “the comments pursued are outrageous and contemptuous towards the civil party and this, because of her North African origin, to which (she) is referred as if this were enough to define her as a person to assign her to a degrading place “. Alain Soral was also ordered to pay 2,000 euros in damages and 2,000 euros in legal costs.

Alain Soral, 63, has been convicted twenty times, notably for incitement to hatred and contestation of crimes against humanity. In April, he was sentenced in Switzerland to three months in prison for homophobic attacks but he opposed this decision and must be tried again.