Paris (AFP)

Caricature Marine Le Pen smoking excrement, is it to commit the offense of insult? The Court of Cassation, meeting on Friday in its most solemn form, has considered the most serious of the world on an issue which, behind its comical airs, contains a real debate of law.

"When this affair of scatological insult began, who would have thought that his scent would reach even under the gold of the Court of Cassation?", Ironically entered the lawyer of the President of the National Rally, Bruno Le Griel.

The subject of the crime - or the absence of crime, that's the whole question - is a caricature of Charlie Hebdo, exhibited one evening in January 2012 by Laurent Ruquier on the set of his show "We're not lying "on France 2.

The drawing, a fake presidential campaign poster, was published a few days earlier in the satirical weekly. There was a smoking turd on a tricolor background, under the slogan "The Pen, the candidate who looks like you".

Marine Le Pen had not attacked Charlie Hebdo, but had sued Laurent Ruquier, because of his wider public, for insult.

The court rejected it in 2014 and 2015, before the Court of Cassation, in 2016, found that the limits of freedom of expression had been exceeded, the drawing undermining "the dignity of the civil party in l 'associating with an excrement', and does not order a third trial.

Las! In 2017, the Court of Appeal had rejected her again, recognizing "the materialistic nature of the poster" but considering that it did not undermine the dignity of the president of the far-right party.

Marine Le Pen had lodged a new appeal in cassation, dismissed, because of the "resistance" of the court of appeal, before the most solemn formation of the high court.

In spite of the subject, infinitely lighter than those recently treated by this plenary assembly - Vincent Lambert, GPA abroad ...-, the debate remains muffled under the leadership of these high magistrates adorned with purple, ermine and 'a serious foolproof.

- "Judgment of disgust" -

Everyone seems to agree on the outrageous nature of the drawing. Should we condemn Laurent Ruquier? The question is that of contours of the offense of insult, freedom of expression and the concept of "dignity" advanced by the Court of Cassation in 2016.

For the lawyer of Marine Le Pen, no doubt, we must condemn. "It is above all his person that we are: we are no longer in the field of criticism but in that of insult the grossest," hammered Me Le Griel.

Charlie, "this is not the kind of humor of the honest man", and Laurent Ruquier wanted to make laugh "at the expense of others, his reputation, his consideration, his dignity", insists he.

On the contrary, the presenter's lawyer, François Pinet, believes that the "balancing of interests at stake" should benefit his client: a political personality caricatured as such, in a form "obviously satirical", in a context of campaign ... For him, the criterion of "the violation of dignity" can not prevail.

The intention is to "make laugh", says the lawyer, and expressing "a judgment of disgust on the program and ideas."

As Me Pinet, the Advocate General, whose role is to defend the law, advocated the dismissal of the appeal of Marine Le Pen.

For this high magistrate, the concept of "dignity of the human person" can generally be set up as "absolute limit to freedom of expression" only when it concerns "racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic or segregationist" messages.

Since the smoking turd is far from such a case, it remains to be seen whether the limits of the freedom of expression have been exceeded. Since this is broader in the case of satire and politicians, in this case, to convict Mr Ruquier would cause a "disproportionate interference" with this freedom, concluded the Advocate General.

Decision on October 25th.

© 2019 AFP