After Metz, Paris.
Placards with anti-Semitic inscriptions were brandished by demonstrators during a rally against the health pass on Saturday, said the police headquarters, which announced that it had seized justice in the early evening.
Public provocation to racial hatred: placards with anti-Semitic inscriptions were brandished today in #Paris.
The Prefect of Police brings these facts to the attention of the courts, under art.
40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
pic.twitter.com/G5ORxdBjpG
- Police Prefecture (@prefpolice) August 14, 2021
In a photo relayed by the prefecture, we see two demonstrators in the 14th arrondissement of Paris carrying signs with the inscription "Who?
», An anti-Semitic slogan which has become popular in recent weeks among far-right activists and conspiratorial circles, after a televised stint with anti-Semitic and conspiratorial overtones a few weeks ago on CNews.
This slogan, which is meant to be interrogative, accuses the Jews of controlling the media, even the world, and therefore of being at the origin of the pandemic, and / or of profiting from it.
Read also Anti-health pass demonstrations: the slogan “Who?”, A new mark of anti-Semitism in conspiratorial and extremist circles
In reaction to these signs, the Prefect of Police Didier Lallement therefore reports having brought these facts of “public provocation to racial hatred” to the attention of the courts.
This offense is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
The prefect of police, underlines the prefecture in its tweet, acts in application of article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, which requires any authority having knowledge of a crime or an offense to report it to justice.
Calls from the far right
A similar sign, brandished by a teacher, Cassandre Fristot, during a rally in Metz (Moselle), was also controversial last Saturday.
The young woman, also an activist in a far-right identity party, the Parti de la France, will also be tried for "public provocation to racial hatred" on September 8.
In response to the activist's arrest, the fundamentalist Catholic association Civitas had called on Twitter to demonstrate on Saturday with placards proclaiming "Who?"
".
In Metz, a hashtag #JesuisCassandre also appeared on some signs, in the middle of the royalist flags present in the demonstration in Metz.
Friday, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had harshly castigated the slogans "sometimes extremely dubious, even completely filthy", anti-vaccination and anti-health pass protesters, calling on them to face "the reality" of the hundreds of unvaccinated hospitalized people .
