Guillaume Meurice announced this Tuesday June 11 that he had been fired “for serious misconduct” by Radio France. Public radio notified him by mail of the “early termination of (one’s) contract for serious misconduct”he indicated while he had been suspended since the beginning of May.
He was removed from the radio on May 2, four days after having reiterated his controversial remarks about the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made at the end of October. He compared it to a “kind of a Nazi but without a foreskin”, and had been accused of anti-Semitism. He had also been the target of complaints for “provocation of violence and anti-Semitic hatred” and “public insults of an anti-Semitic nature”, which were dismissed by the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office on April 22. Welcoming this court decision, the comedian then repeated his joke.
Guillaume Meurice was summoned on May 16 for a preliminary interview with Radio France human resources, before this disciplinary committee, in which several union representatives participated. A member of Sud, he was accompanied by his union. “Management maintains its grievances. We continued our arguments which aim to recall that Guillaume Meurice did his job as a comedian on the air and to defend that he did not lack loyalty to Radio France nor did he seek to exploit the air to personal purposes”which he is accused of, said one of the participants.
Update at 11 a.m., added context.