On September 29, 2020, during a debate on the program "Face à l'Info" on Cnews devoted to the issue of unaccompanied minors, Eric Zemmour declared: "they have nothing to do here, they are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that's all they are, they must be sent away and they must not even come ".
The Paris prosecutor's office quoted the polemicist Eric Zemmour to appear on September 8 before the criminal court for "incitement to discrimination" and "racial insults" after remarks about unaccompanied minor migrants, AFP learned on Friday from his lawyer, confirming information from L'Obs.
On September 29, 2020, during a debate on the program "Face à l'Info" on Cnews devoted to the issue of unaccompanied minors after an attack in front of the former Charlie Hebdo premises, Eric Zemmour declared: "they do not 'have nothing to do here, they are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that's all they are, they must be sent back and they must not even come ".
Two days later, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation to examine whether these comments could be prosecuted before the criminal court.
Pursued 12 times
A week earlier Eric Zemmour had been fined 10,000 euros, already for "incitement to racial hatred" and "racist public insults", for a diatribe on Islam and immigration during a political rally in the fall of 2019, broadcast live on LCI.
"I am astonished that it is still the public prosecutor's office which decides to sue my client, and not the associations", commented Mr. Olivier Pardo.
Appearing serene in the face of this new judicial deadline, Me Pardo underlined that "Eric Zemmour has been prosecuted 12 times and we have won 10 times: one conviction was not contested on appeal by choice and the other", for the speech on LCI, "is pending before the European Court of Human Rights" (ECHR) for remarks in 2016 on Muslims.
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For statements on Cnews, the Superior Audiovisual Council has already sanctioned the Canal + group's news channel with a fine of 200,000 euros, last March, for "incitement to hatred" and "to violence".
The Canal + Group had in the process "deplored" a decision contravening "the principle of freedom of expression" and announced that it wanted "to implement possible remedies as soon as possible".
In this case, the associations SOS Racisme, Licra and Maison des Potes had announced their intention to become civil parties.
Presidential intentions
Since his arrival on CNews in October 2019, in the midst of a controversy over his comments on Islam, complaints have multiplied against the news channel and the polemicist who has boosted his audiences, "Face à l'info "bringing together an average of 700,000 viewers.
Targeted in the press by several accusations of sexual assault, the writer and journalist was also singled out for the "excess" of his statements by the ethics committee of Canal +.
Eric Zemmour, to whom are lent with insistence the presidential intentions, never explicitly mentioned such a project, but the association of financing of the party "The friends of Eric Zemmour" was approved on July 1st by the National Campaign Accounts Commission.