Eric Zemmour fined 4,000 euros for “racist insult”

“Mademoiselle, your first name is an insult to France”. This Thursday, Eric Zemmour, a former journalist and far-right polemicist, was sentenced to a fine of 4,000 euros for “racist insult”, for having qualified in 2018 the first name of the former columnist of the Canal + group Hapsatou Sy of “insult to France”.

The 64-year-old former presidential candidate and president of the Reconquête! party, who did not surrender to his judgment, was also ordered to pay 3,000 euros in damages and 2,000 euros in court costs. lawyers. His lawyer Me Olivier Pardo immediately announced that he was appealing “against this decision which has no legal meaning”. “It is a great satisfaction”, on the contrary estimated Me Antoine Vey, lawyer of Hapsatou Sy, “the court entirely agreed with us”.

“Your mother was wrong”

During the hearing, on November 4, the prosecutor had requested 100 day-fines of 200 euros, or 20,000 euros, which could turn into imprisonment in the event of non-payment. The comments in question were made during the public recording of Thierry Ardisson’s program “Les Terriens du dimanche” in September 2018 on C8. The production company had cut the excerpt during editing.

The sequence as broadcast on C8 goes like this: Hapsatou Sy reminds Eric Zemmour of his first name, who retorts: “Your mother was wrong”. “And what would you like my name to be?” “, bounces the columnist. “Corinne”, replies the guest.

In a following face-to-face, cut during the editing, the columnist declares: “What you have just said is an insult to France”. “Mademoiselle, it’s your first name that is an insult to France,” says Eric Zemmour in return.

“A personal attack, of a discriminatory nature”

The court stressed that the remarks were “outrageous” towards Hapsatou Sy “since they mean that his first name, part of his personality […] would be the expression of a mark of disrespect, of contempt towards France and would undermine its dignity”.

“Even if they present a link with the initial debate, [ses propos] stand out clearly from the latter from the moment they degenerate into a strictly personal attack, of a discriminatory nature”, according to the court.

Eric Zemmour had been definitively sentenced to a fine of 3,000 euros for provoking religious hatred in 2016. In 2023, he must be warned in eight trials in Paris after complaints against comments he made.

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