Will his cellmates appreciate his songs? A man was sentenced on Monday, September 16, 2024 to four months in prison (suspended) for having been the author of several racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic parodies of French songs and nursery rhymes broadcast on YouTube and Telegram.
“Public incitement to hatred”
In its decision, consulted by AFP, the Paris judicial court considered that all of the statements prosecuted were “constituting public provocation to hatred or violence against a person or group of people on the grounds of their origin or their membership or non-membership of a specific ethnic group, nation, race or religion.”
Cédric M., alias Blagodariov on social media, 43 years old, also appeared before the 17th correctional chamber of the Paris judicial court for “unfulfilled incitement to commit willful attacks on life, public insult and public apology for crimes against humanity”.
Parodies of (extremely) dubious taste
During a previous hearing, the forty-year-old admitted to being the author of several dozen videos of French songs with distorted language, published on YouTube and Telegram.
One of them, taking up the tune of a song by Philippe Lavil, is called They are hitting the Bantusanother, using the air of Brunettes don’t count for peanuts by the singer Lio, highlights the runes, the proto-Germanic alphabet used by the Nazis, or the swastika, symbols of the Third Reich.
“I did it for humorous purposes.”
The court concluded that “this valorization of the symbols of a regime which embodies in the collective mind the genocide of the Jews characterizes the apology for this crime against humanity.”
In court, the defendant, who holds a degree in Russian and is unemployed, denied being racist and said he was not pursuing a “militant goal.” “I was actually doing it for fun, for humorous purposes,” he said in an uncertain voice.
Our “Racism” file
“The humour here is not intended to make people laugh, but on the contrary contributes to the dissemination of hateful remarks by hiding the disapproval they arouse under a veneer of derision,” the court concluded.