From the web to anti-pass demonstrations, anti-Semitic images and slogans are regularly mixed with scientific conspiracy.
This time, it was in Besançon, last weekend, that an anti-Semitic sign was brandished on the sidelines of the mobilization against the vaccine passport.
The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) lodged a complaint with the local police station on Wednesday and an investigation for "incitement to racial hatred" was opened in the wake.
In its complaint, the Licra attached the photo of the sign, on which is written the sentence "The genocide of the Goyim" (non-Jews, editor's note), with in the background the image of a nurse holding a syringe.
You can't see the protester's face.
🔴Submission of a complaint to the police station by the @licrabesanconfc for incitement to racial hatred during the # manif14aout in Besançon.
#antisemitism #VigilanceAbsolueToléranceZéro https://t.co/WDuxQKSYqH via @_LICRA_
- Licra (@_LICRA_) August 18, 2021
The departmental security therefore quickly launched an investigation for "incitement to hatred or violence because of origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion by word, writing or image".
"The investigations began with the use of video surveillance images of the city in order to identify the various protagonists, the bearers of signs", specifies the deputy head of departmental security, Christophe Touris.
"A massive rejection on the part of the other demonstrators"
The Licra Besançon Franche-Comté believes that "the health crisis we are going through generates behaviors some of which, knowingly, endanger Republican cohesion by posting, openly expressing anti-Semitic remarks, using the oldest and filthy accusations against the Jews" . For its president, Jérôme Conscience, "one cannot display an anti-Semitic sign like this, without nobody reacting". “From what we were told, around twenty far-right activists were gathered around these signs in Besançon, but there was a massive rejection of the other demonstrators who were numerous to say that they did not want to be associated with this type of sign, ”he stressed.
Anti-Semitic signs have appeared in several processions of demonstrations against the health pass. In Metz, a teacher and former member of the National Front, Cassandre Fristot, was summoned to court in September to answer for the offense of "public provocation to racial hatred" for an anti-Semitic sign brandished on August 7. During the demonstration in Metz on August 14, demonstrators gave him their support via placards without being worried. Sunday was opened an investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office after a report by the prefect of police Didier Lallement for signs brandished at the Paris demonstration on Saturday.
In Epinal too, two investigations were opened for signs with swastikas, while in Compiègne in the Oise, a man was arrested and summoned to court in October.
