The matter ends there. Eric Zemmour has given up appealing his conviction for “copyright infringement” after the unauthorized use of film images in his presidential candidacy clip, AFP learned on Thursday from a source. close to the file.
Eric Zemmour, his far-right party Reconquest! and one of his relatives, François Miramont, had been sentenced in March to jointly pay a total of 70,000 euros to the plaintiffs. In the end, they will not appeal the judgment rendered by the Paris court, according to documents of which AFP has knowledge.
Film extracts
Asked by AFP, Eric Zemmour did not answer the reasons for this withdrawal. Was in question, the unauthorized use of extracts from the films “Jeanne d’Arc” by Luc Besson (1999), “A monkey in winter” by Henri Verneuil (1962), “In the house” by François Ozon (2012 ), “The Quai des Mists” by Marcel Carné (1938) and the documentary “Louis Pasteur, portrait of a visionary” (2011) in his clip announcing his candidacy for the presidential election.
This ten-minute clip, broadcast live on various channels on November 30, had been viewed more than three million times on YouTube, before being blocked in France by the platform in early March. Eric Zemmour and his movement had been assigned in mid-January for “counterfeiting” and “infringement of moral and patrimonial rights”.
media images
Among the complainants, the Gaumont and EuropaCorp companies, the directors Luc Besson and François Ozon, the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD) or the beneficiaries of the director Henri Verneuil and the writer and screenwriter Jacques Prévert.
In addition, several media, including Agence France-Presse, had strongly protested against the unauthorized use of their images among the 144 extracts used in the clip, without going as far as legal proceedings.