The Court of Cassation decided, Tuesday, September 5, to quash the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal which had acquitted Eric Zemmour of the offense of contesting a crime against humanity for his statements dating from 2019, when he had reaffirmed on the CNEWS channel that Marshal Philippe Pétain had ” Safe “ French Jews during World War II. It will therefore have to be retried by the Court of Appeal.
“Contrary to what the Court of Appeal held, the remarks complained of can constitute an offense even if they relate to a personality who has not been convicted of a crime against humanity (in this Philippe Pétain case)says the court. The Court of Appeal should have considered that by affirming “It is once again the real”, the politician took up on his own the remarks according to which Philippe Pétain had “saved the French Jews” ;
The highest court of the judiciary rendered its decision after hearing appeals from the Attorney General at the Paris Court of Appeal as well as from five anti-racist associations – SOS-Racisme, the Union of Jewish Students in France ( UEJF), the Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples, I accuse! International Action for Justice and the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism – against the May 2022 ruling releasing Eric Zemmour from the head of “disputing the existence of crimes against humanity”.
In June 2023, the far-right politician was prosecuted for remarks made in 2019, during a debate against Bernard-Henri Lévy in the program “Face à l’info”, of which he was the columnist, on CNews. ” A day (…) you dared to say that Pétain had saved the French Jews. It is a monstrosity, it is revisionism”, launched Mr. Lévy. Mr. Zemmour then replied that it was necessary ” to specify “ he was talking about jews ” French “. Bernard-Henri Lévy insisted: “It’s a monstrosity, it’s revisionism! » And Mr. Zemmour concludes: “It is once again the real. »
In its judgment, the Paris Court of Appeal considered that the offense of contesting a crime against humanity was not characterized because ” the sayings (…), if they can hurt the families of deportees (…), are not intended to contest or diminish, even marginally, the number of victims of deportation or the policy of extermination in the concentration camps.. She added that Pétain had not been “prosecuted for one or more crimes against humanity as defined by article 6 of the statute of the international military tribunal annexed to the London agreement of August 8, 1945”.