The town hall of Lyon has signed an order prohibiting a show by comedian Dieudonné scheduled for Saturday in the city, announced the community and the Rhône prefecture in a press release published Thursday.
This decision, taken “in order to guarantee respect for public order”, comes the day after a similar decision by the mayor of Toulouse. Representations of this same show, entitled “Sous bracelet”, have already been banned in other cities, including Montpellier and Paris.
The Lyon representation had been announced for Saturday August 19 on the Dieudonné website. The exact location was to be communicated to people who purchased a ticket, a few hours before its start, the statement said.
The city of Lyon recalls that Dieudonné has been the subject of “numerous criminal convictions for having held negationist speeches, inciting racial hatred or glorifying terrorism”.
“Act responsibly”
“Faced with the risk of public order disturbances, the prefect of the Rhône fully supports the decision of the mayor of Lyon to ban the Dieudonné show”, it is specified. It “invites the mayors of the other municipalities of the department to take the same measures if the place of the representation were to change”.
Tuesday evening in a press release, the CRIF Auvergne Rhône-Alpes had expressed its “deep concern about the next performances” in Lyon by Dieudonné, one scheduled for this Saturday, the other in December, and called on the mayor of the city to “act responsibly”.
Several performances are scheduled in August, according to the Dieudonné site, as in Grenoble or Auxerre. Since 2002, Dieudonné has been the subject of numerous legal proceedings. In particular, he was sentenced in September 2020 to a fine of 10,000 euros for racist remarks made in June 2017 during his show “Bal des quenelles”.