The elected member of the National Rally argued that French justice had not respected freedom of expression by condemning him. But the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Julien Sanchez. She dismissed him on Monday, a second time, when he challenged his conviction for comments on his Facebook page calling for hatred against Muslims and his slowness to delete them.
“The disputed comments which fell within the specific framework of an electoral period (…) certainly fell within the scope of hate speech and were therefore unlawful”, indicates in a press release summarizing its decision the Grand Chamber, supreme formation of the ECHR . Julien Sanchez had seized it after a first decision rendered in September 2021 by the European Court and which was already unfavorable to him.
Facebook page open to all
Mayor of Beaucaire (Gard) since 2014, regional councilor of Occitanie and vice-president of the National Rally (RN), he was found guilty in 2013 by the criminal court of Nîmes of having left visible on his Facebook page, open to all, comments from other people aimed at Muslims. This criminal conviction was upheld on appeal and an appeal in cassation was dismissed in 2015.
At the material time, Julien Sanchez was a candidate for the National Front (FN, which was succeeded by the RN) in the legislative elections in the constituency of Nîmes. The offending remarks were written after a message from the elected official about the launch of the website of one of his “political opponents”, recalls the Court.
A “lack of vigilance and reaction”
As in its first judgment, the European court again found that the French courts, in convicting Julien Sanchez, had not violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression.
Julien Sanchez “having decided to make access to the wall of his Facebook account public and to have thus “authorized his friends to post comments there”, the Court notes (…) that he could not ignore, given the context tense local and electoral situation that existed at the material time, that such an option was clearly fraught with consequences”, notes the ECHR. It recalls that only “the applicant’s lack of vigilance and reaction to comments published by third parties” was at issue in this case.