A preliminary investigation was opened on Tuesday April 12 in Paris after the complaint of two associations which denounce the canvassing by SMS of the party of Eric Zemmour targeting French voters of the Jewish faith, before the first round of the presidential election.
Friday, April 8, an SMS signed with the name of the candidate was sent to many mobile phones in France. It referred to a page published by the Reconquest party, on which was displayed a “Message from Eric Zemmour to French people of the Jewish faith”.
“Following a complaint from the UEJF and the association J’accuse AIJI, an investigation was opened today into the heads of detention, storage, recording, transmission of personal data outside the cases provided for by law, communication to a third party without authorization and misuse of the purposes of a personal data file”, confirmed the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The investigations were entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of personal crime (BRDP).
PROHIBITED FILING
This Tuesday, the Licra, SOS Racisme and the Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples (Mrap) also announced a complaint.
SMS distributed by E. Zemmour to French people of the Jewish faith: the @_LICRA_, @SOS_Racism and the @MrapOfficiel lodge a complaint for the illegal creation of a religious database.
Filing and targeting that violate the laws of the Republic #presidential2022 pic.twitter.com/ZcoV8CZBr7
— Licra (@_LICRA_) April 12, 2022
The National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil) had already opened an investigation following this canvassing. According to the organization, “the processing of personal data which reveals (…) religious beliefs” is “prohibited”, unless “the data subject has given his explicit consent to the processing of such personal data for a or more specific purposes”.
Me Sacha Ghozlan, who filed a complaint for the “J’accuse” association, denounced on Twitter “the most massive exploitation of lists of names of Jews since the Vel’d’hiv roundup”.
The criminal code punishes by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros the creation of a file showing religious beliefs or racial or ethnic origins without the consent of the person concerned.