The far-right polemicist was prosecuted for racial slur. His lawyer has announced that he is appealing this decision.
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© CARINE SCHMITT / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
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Eric Zemmour was sentenced this Thursday to a fine of 4,000 euros for racist insults, for having qualified in 2018 the first name of the former columnist of the Canal + group Hapsatou Sy as an “insult to France”. The 64-year-old former presidential candidate and president of Reconquête!, absent during the judgment, was also ordered to pay 3,000 euros in damages and 2,000 euros in legal fees. His lawyer M.e Olivier Pardo immediately announced that he was appealing “against this decision which has no legal meaning”.
“It is a great satisfaction”, on the contrary estimated Me Antoine Vey, Hapsatou Sy’s lawyer, “the court gave us complete reason”. “Behind Hapsatou Sy’s fight, there is probably the recognition of a whole section of the French population,” he added. During the hearing, on November 4, the prosecutor had requested 100 day-fines of 200 euros, or 20,000 euros, which could turn into imprisonment in the event of non-payment.READ ALSO All the times Éric Zemmour was convicted (and released)The remarks in question had been made during the public recording of Thierry Ardisson’s program Sunday Earthlings in September 2018 on C8. The production company had cut the excerpt during editing. The columnist had broadcast on social networks a video filmed by a make-up artist containing this cut passage and filed a complaint with a civil action. The sequence as broadcast on C8 goes like this: Hapsatou Sy reminds Éric Zemmour of his first name, who retorts: “Your mother was wrong”. “And what would you like my name to be?” “, bounces the columnist. “Corinne”, replies the guest.
“Outrageous” remarks
In a following face-to-face, cut during the editing, the columnist declares: “What you have just said is an insult to France. “Mademoiselle, it’s your first name that is an insult to France,” says Éric Zemmour in return. The court stressed that the remarks were “outrageous” towards Hapsatou Sy “since they mean that his first name, part of his personality […]would be the expression of a mark of disrespect, of contempt towards France and would undermine its dignity”.READ ALSO This law of 1803 which regulated first names and which Zemmour wants to restore
“Even if they present a link with the initial debate [ces propos] stand out clearly from the latter from the moment they degenerate into a strictly personal attack, of a discriminatory nature”, according to the court. Éric Zemmour had been definitively sentenced to a fine of 3,000 euros for provoking religious hatred in 2016. He is the target of numerous procedures. In 2023, he must be warned in eight trials in Paris after complaints against comments he made.
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