Sanctioned following controversial comments about the Israeli Prime Minister, comedian Guillaume Meurice returned to France Inter early Sunday evening in the show “Le Grand Dimanche Soir”. This took place exceptionally without an audience, for security reasons due to the death threats hanging over him. After suggesting for Halloween a ” disguise “ by Benyamin Netanyahu, “kind of a Nazi but without a foreskin”in a sketch on France Inter at the end of October, Guillaume Meurice, who refused to apologize, had received a ” warning “ of the radio which uses it.
“Are you there? »asked the host of the show, Charline Vanhoenacker. “I don’t know for how long yet. But my badge is still activated, so I’m here”, he quipped. Charline Vanhoenacker defended her columnist, who received death threats. “Listen carefully to this silence. It’s the one that sets in after the threats and intimidation against comedians”she said to comment on the absence of the public usually present during the recording.
“In the October 29 show, a joke caused controversy. If this joke shocked you or hurt you or both, if this joke made you laugh, or if you regretted having laughed, if it embarrassed you, divided you, made you think, or if you went through several states to at the same time, well know that it is the same within our team”she continued. “If we are here this evening, it is because we have overcome our differences, and we have confidence in Guillaume.”
“Reducing a joke to what the far right reads of it is a dangerous attempt at intent. Dangerous because some (…) draw a target on the clowns’ foreheads”said the presenter.
For his column today, Guillaume Meurice did not waive his right to “excess”. “This column, yeah, I have the impression that it is quite long awaited. We are going to get a good Mediamétrie score, in particular I am thinking of the HR Director of Radio France, who must be listening”, he said in the introduction. Claiming to have received a lot of support, Guillaume Meurice explained: “I couldn’t answer everyone. I was pretty busy. This is what I have in common with the West Bank, by the way.”.
“I also read the constructive remarks following this story of Netanyahu, Nazi, foreskin. I was told: yeah, but Hamas, too, are Nazis without foreskins. Eh yes ! Yes, and I never said the opposite, I even wonder if there is not a problem with this absence of foreskin. It actually annoys them. Because it itches? I don’t know. Undoubtedly an aggravating factor”he continued.
“The value of freedom of expression”
In an interview given to La Tribune Sundaythe CEO of Radio France, Sibyle Veil, had earlier justified her choice to call the comedian to order, ruling out a dismissal. “I did not want to send a signal that some would have hastened to exploitexplains the boss of the public radio group. The value of freedom of expression, to which we are very attached, is much more important than a problematic sentence from a comedian, which fortunately is an exception. »
According to information from Figaronot confirmed by Radio France, Guillaume Meurice benefits from the status of protected employee after having presented himself on the SUD list in the last professional elections of staff representatives.
Mme Veil also minimized tensions internally. “Actually, it doesn’t create as much of a stir as you say (…) This week has been relatively calm”, she said. She also deplored “a spiral of controversy that crushes everything. For ten days, we have only been talking about that, to the detriment of the 99.99% of other things that we do on our airwaves, notably the detailed coverage of the conflict in the Middle East..
In a context of high tensions around the war between Israel and Hamas, Guillaume Meurice’s joke earned him numerous and severe criticisms, as well as death threats. On Monday, the host claimed not to have “no fault”. “I practice humor, caricature, political satire, and excess is part of it”he pleaded in The worldhe who counts “challenge in court” the warning he received.