The controversy is growing around Guillaume Meurice’s sketch. This Tuesday, October 31, 2023, ARCOM indicated that it had received “following a column broadcast on France Inter”. We are talking about the sequence during which the columnist suggested dressing up, to scare people on Halloween, as Netanyahu, “a kind of Nazi but without a foreskin.”
Very quickly, This joke caused an uproar among public opinion so much so that Adèle Van Reeth, the director of France Inter radio, spoke out to condemn the columnist’s words. “Qcalling any political representative a ‘Nazi’ is an outrage, the comic nature of which can normally be questioned. When this representative […] is himself Jewish, at the head of a Jewish state, whose inhabitants have just suffered a terrorist attack having murdered more than a thousand of them, [c’] is even more debatable.” she declared.
This Wednesday, November 1, 2023, it’s Charline Vanhoenacker’s turn to speak out on the controversy via a long post on X (formerly Twitter). “I am writing to you in my capacity as producer and host of Le Grand Dimanche Soir, a program during which the hook of a satirical column offended many of you. If you felt hurt, I am deeply sorry. I understand that the reception of the message can seem violent, because when the satire evokes a war, the magnifying reflection of the caricature is a catharsis. she said.
The producer then speaks to the columnist: “However, this does not deserve the threats to which Guillaume is subject. Nor does it deserve the accusations of anti-Semitism which constitute violence against us. Accusations whose generalization to the entire channel are unjustified, absurd and malicious. I therefore want to clear up any ambiguity: anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any message of hatred will not have a single second of airtime in our show.”.
And to conclude: “I reiterate my commitment to defending freedom of expression, the right to satire and blasphemy, with the scruples necessary for social peace. These are the principles that I have also reaffirmed in my latest columns on antenna, about the virtues of laughter in the aftermath of collective tragedies. I wish us peaceful times, harmony and rediscovered laughter”.
Good evening France Inter pic.twitter.com/MkNJ9Tvk5H
— CharlineVanhoenacker (@Charlineaparis) November 1, 2023
ES