The deputy LFI of Paris, Danièle Obono. – STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
The weekly Valeurs Actuelles will be tried on June 23 by the Paris Criminal Court for “racist public insult” after the publication of a “political fiction” at the end of August depicting the LFI deputy Danièle Obono as a slave, said Wednesday the Paris prosecutor to AFP.
The publication director of Current values, Erik Monjalous, his editor, Geoffroy Lejeune, and the author of the article will appear for this publication. The first is targeted for “public insult of a racist nature” and the other two for “complicity” in this offense, said the prosecution.
“Denounce the trivialization of sexist, racist and xenophobic discourse”
The deputy Danièle Obono and the movement La France insoumise had indicated in a communicated Tuesday to have learned “with satisfaction” this referral to trial. “This publication, particularly outrageous, had legitimately aroused an almost unanimous indignation in France and abroad”, underline the deputy and her political formation.
Justice confirms that hate speech against @Deputee_Obono in #CurrentValues, considered by the advertising agency #Taboola as “overtly racist, discriminatory, offensive” are sufficient grounds for breaking the contract
-feat. Rachel💕-https://t.co/Hp5s40gXKX– Sleeping Giants FR (@slpng_giants_fr) April 12, 2021
The deputy, who had lodged a complaint, “now intends to become a civil party in this affair”, with the intention “to denounce the trivialization of sexist, racist and xenophobic discourse in our country, trivialization which has led a far-right newspaper to submit, symbolically, a black politician to the crime against humanity that was slavery in Africa ”.
Drawings by Danièle Obono iron on the neck
In this seven-page story published at the end of August by the ultra-conservative magazine, the deputy for Paris “experiences the responsibility of Africans in the horrors of slavery” in the 18th century, according to the presentation made by the weekly. It included drawings by Danièle Obono with an iron collar around her neck, sparking a wave of unanimous condemnation in the political class, including that of the President of the Republic.
The opinion magazine replied on Twitter that it was “a fiction depicting the horrors of slavery organized by Africans in the 18th century”, “a terrible truth that indigenous people do not want to see”. On BFMTV, Tugdual Denis, deputy editor of Current values, was then “apologized to her in a personal capacity”, assuring that her newspaper was not racist.
Asked by AFP on Wednesday, Geoffroy Lejeune said that “this trial will be an opportunity to demonstrate the political postures of those who attacked us on the occasion of this affair, to prove our good faith to those who were troubled, and finally explain clearly [leurs] intentions in this dossier: to fight against the discourse of the natives and the war of memories which leads to the fracturing of France ”.