Eric Zemmour sent back to correctional for "racist insult"

Eric Zemmour was referred to the Paris Criminal Court for “racist insult” for having qualified in 2018 the first name of columnist Hapsatou Sy as “an insult to France”, a judicial source said on Wednesday (October 28th).

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During Thierry Ardisson's show “Les Terriens du dimanche” in September 2018 on C8, Eric Zemmour had said that the first name of the columnist Hapsatou Sy was an “insult to France”.

The production company cut the excerpt during editing, but the columnist posted it on social networks, provoking outrage.

"We are contesting" the order for reference, "the words are not public, it was not broadcast and we are considering appealing," said Mr. Olivier Pardo, Zemmour's lawyer.

"There is nothing racist about the words, it's a discussion of a point of view that was in no way offensive," he added.

10,000 euros fine in another case

The columnist had filed a complaint for "insult because of his origin and his membership (or his non-membership) to an ethnic group and a nation", an offense punishable by the law of 1881 on freedom of the press.

“This insult not only implicates Hapsatou Sy, but behind it the millions of French people who have a first name that Eric Zemmour does not hear.

He himself has a first name of Viking origin and I do not deny him belonging to the French community, ”reacted his lawyer, Me Antoine Vey.

Eric Zemmour, hired by CNews as a daily columnist in October 2019, regularly creates controversy for his statements, especially on immigration and Islam.

On October 1, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "provocation to racial hatred" and "racist public insults" against the polemicist after remarks about unaccompanied minors on CNews.

In another case, the prosecution obtained, on September 25, its conviction of 10,000 euros fine for insult and incitement to hatred, this time for a diatribe on Islam and immigration during a political rally a year earlier broadcast on LCI.