New trial to come for Eric Zemmour : the Court of Cassation sides with anti-racist associations

On Tuesday, February 21, the Court of Cassation annulled the acquittal of Eric Zemmour dating from September 2021. The extreme right-wing polemicist will therefore have to be retried before the Paris Court of Appeal for public insults and provocation of racial hatred. This decision represents a victory for the anti-racist associations, civil parties in the proceedings, in particular for the Maison des Potes whose lawyers had sought the support of VoxPublic to publicize the trial in first instance in 2020.

In September 2019, during the « Convention of the Right » organized by relatives of Marion Maréchal Le Pen, Eric Zemmour gave a speech denigrating immigration and Islam. Broadcast live on LCI, these remarks qualified immigrants as « colonizers », denounced a supposed « Islamization of the street », described the veil and the djellaba as « the uniforms of an army of occupation »... In short, Eric Zemmour asserted that « All our problems aggravated by immigration are aggravated by Islam ».

Without waiting, the CSA (which has since become Arcom) received 650 reports and referred the matter to the Ministry of Justice, which decided to prosecute Eric Zemmour for « public insult of a racial nature » and « public provocation of racial hatred ».

Seven anti-racist associations filed civil suits. One of them, the Fédération Nationale des Maisons des Potes and its lawyers, asked VoxPublic to think about the communication strategy to adopt to publicize this legal procedure. VoxPublic facilitated the organization of a press conference - the morning of the hearing - bringing together MRAP, LICRA, CCIF (since dissolved) and the Maison des Potes : associations that very rarely speak together.

Already convicted in 2011 for incitement to racial hatred and in 2018, for incitement to religious hatred, in 2019, Eric Zemmour was fined 10,000 euros in the first instance. The Criminal Court of Paris indeed considered that his remarks constituted incitement « to discrimination and hatred against the Muslim community and its religion. »

However, the Paris Court of Appeal acquitted the polemicist on September 8, 2021, arguing that the remarks were aimed only at a fraction of « Africans, immigrants or Muslims » and not at all of them, thus minimizing the racist nature of Eric Zemmour’s remarks. In reaction, the public prosecutor’s office and the anti-racist associations that were civil parties in the trial appealed to the Supreme Court. The result : the highest court in the judicial system cancels the acquittal and orders a new trial for public insults and provocation to racial hatred.

VoxPublic will support the associations and lawyers during the next appeal hearing to ensure the repercussion that this trial deserves. This judicial, media and political time will be a milestone in the fight against the racist ideology propagated by the extreme right