The senator from the far-right Reconquest!
Stéphane Ravier was sentenced on Friday to a fine of 3,000 euros by the Marseille criminal court for defamation against the sea rescue NGO SOS Méditerranée.
The facts date back to 2018 when Stéphane Ravier, then still a member of the National Rally (RN), accused the NGO providing assistance to refugees in distress at sea and whose headquarters is in Marseille
“of being complicit in human trafficking »
.
In addition to a fine of 3,000 euros, the senator now joined Eric Zemmour's party was ordered to pay the symbolic sum of one euro to SOS Méditerranée for moral damage.
Present during the deliberations, Stéphane Ravier indicated that he would appeal this decision.
A tweet congratulating Generation Identity
On October 7, 2018, the senator questioned SOS Méditerranée on Twitter (now X), also congratulating the far-right Génération Identitaire movement, dissolved in 2021, for their violent action in front of the NGO's headquarters in Marseille.
Two days earlier, 22 activists from Génération Identitaire had entered the NGO's headquarters in Marseille where they displayed a banner accusing SOS Méditerranée of being
“complicit in human trafficking”
.
The general director of SOS Méditerranée, Sophie Beau, said that the NGO's staff had
"been brutalized, some (employees) tackled"
then
"forced ejected from their office"
.
Denouncing a
“unique scene of violence”
, the court sentenced two of the Génération Identitaire activists on October 20, 2022 to prison terms of up to one year for this action.