French Justice Convicts Right-Wing Extremist Who Insulted Muslims

French justice regains its vitality after months of eclipse, targeting the dens of the far right in France, who have become a real threat to social harmony in this country, due to the media war they are waging against French citizens of non-French origin, namely the Muslim community and sometimes the Algerian community exclusively.

After the successive blows received by one of the most prominent icons of the far right, represented by the French Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, in the case of the Algerian influencer “Boualem”, with the decision of the French judicial authorities to cancel his deportation, ordering the Interior Ministry to provide him with his residence documents and release him, and while waiting for the conviction of another far-right extremist, the prominent figure in the extremist “National Front” party (currently the Republicans), Robert Ménard, the mayor of Béziers, who deported an Algerian citizen who was about to get married with a French woman, the French judicial authorities convicted another far-right extremist, who is a prominent official in many far-right platforms.

The well-known media figure, Jean-Claude Dassier, was sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,000 euros for racist remarks he made in 2022 on the CNews channel, one of the most extreme right-wing media, targeting the Muslim community in France, according to identical media sources, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the investigative newspaper Mediapart.

Jean-Claude Dassier is a prominent French figure, having previously headed the Olympique de Marseille team, and previously been the general manager of the right-wing LCI channel from 1996 to 2008, then the news director of the first French TV channel TF1. The reason for the conviction dates back to 2022 when he made a racist statement: “Muslims don’t give a damn about the Republic. They do not even know what this word means!” This statement caused much controversy in France, as it came from an unusual figure.

The sentence against Jean-Claude Dassier was not harsh, but represents a conviction against him, as he targeted a specific group of French people, who have suffered greatly from racist remarks issued by far-right circles in recent years, in a way that has begun to threaten social stability in a country that claims equality as a slogan for its values.

On February 10, the French judicial authorities classified Jean-Claude Dassier’s accusation as “public insult on the grounds of origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion”, a charge that was documented in a talk show on the extremist TV channel “CNews”, under the title: “Violence among Youth: how do we say stop?”.

The court that issued the ruling considered that “the heinous and insulting statements (…) degrade and defame all followers of the Islamic religion”, and confirmed the charge of “public insult on the grounds of origin, race, nation or religion”, while it decided that Dassier should pay the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, as the civil party, one thousand euros “in compensation for his moral bias”, and 1000 euros to cover legal costs.

Although the French TV channel itself comes to Jean-Claude Dassier’s racist and extremist remarks, it remains one of the dirtiest extremist media platforms that spew daily toxins against Algeria, the Muslim community and immigrants in general, in addition to its unconditional support for the Zionist crimes against the defenceless Palestinian people.

Observers are waiting to see what will happen to the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, when he appears before the Montpellier court on February 18, on the background of his involvement in preventing an Algerian citizen, “Mustafa”, from marrying a French woman, “Eva”, in the summer of 2023, while they were about to get married, as he decided to deport him to Algeria without a legal procedure, to prevent this marriage from taking place, knowing that Robert Ménard is elected in the ranks of Marine Le Pen’s party.