He points to a “gag trial”. The emergency doctor Mathias Wargon was attacked for defamation by Xavier Azalbert, the publication director of the France Soir* site. The trial takes place this Thursday at the Paris courthouse.
On September 2, 2021, the doctor, head of the emergency department at the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis and husband of the former Minister of Housing Emmanuelle Wargon, is invited from the Polonews program on BFMTV. Another guest, Xavier Azalbert. He was invited to talk about a column published anonymously on the France Soir website, August 22. The platform targets the government and the scientific council, the Order of Physicians, qualified as “thought police”, Internet users and doctors, some of whom are named. The anonymous author deplores a “doxa”, qualifies certain doctors as “white Khmers” and begins by denouncing “a brainwashing distilled by the ‘mainstream’ propagandist media”.
A collective denounces the tribune
On August 31, In The Express, a group of health professionals and Internet users responds to the forum, denouncing its conclusion. “A trial will have to be held, can we read on the text published on the site of France Soir. The Widow grows impatient. Everything was said. »
“The” Widow “refers, without any ambiguity, to one of the nicknames given first to the gallows, then, during the French Revolution, to the guillotine”, writes the collective in the weekly, denouncing an “incitement to hatred” and a “call for death sentences”.
A few hours after the publication of the tribune, France Soir adds a precision to the conclusion, arguing that the “Widow” alludes to widowed women because of the Covid-19.
On September 2, Xavier Azalbert is therefore on the BFMTV set to talk about this text. The sequence, entitled “Antivax in the face of the anger of doctors” is available for replay.
The publication director of France Soir criticizes Mathias Wargon for having declared “ah yeah, the article is good, eh, he takes us a bit for idiots, Mr. Azalbert, but he is good” and “And the end, and the end all the same […] because there are things that are a little disgusting, […] there is a sentence that no one has noted but I took your text, I did some text analysis, it’s filthy. BFMTV and its publication director are also the subject of the complaint, for having put the video on replay.
“We are on a quote [la motivation de la plainte en diffamation] which gives the impression of a gag procedure, which attacks remarks which are in the judgment of value and which are protected by the freedom of expression”, note to 20 minutes master Laura Ben Kemoun, the doctor’s lawyer.
In 2021, the context is tense after the start of the vaccination campaign, between doctors active on social networks like Mathias Wargon and who explain and defend vaccination, and opponents of this campaign. During the broadcast on BFMTV, Mathias Wargon recalls that he received a bullet and a letter with powder.
* Contacted, he had not responded at the time of publication of this article.