Valeurs Actuelles sent to trial for "racist insult" against Danièle Obono

The weekly

will be tried on June 23 by the Paris Criminal Court for "racist public insult" after a "political fiction" at the end of August depicting the LFI deputy Danièle Obono as a slave, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Wednesday. by AFP.

The publication director of

, Erik Monjalous, its editorial director, Geoffroy Lejeune, and the author of the article will appear for this "political-fiction" comprising drawings of Danièle Obono iron collar on the neck which had aroused a wave of unanimous condemnations in the political class, including that of the President of the Republic.

Danièle Obono intends to "become a civil party"

The first is targeted for "public insult of a racist nature" and the other two for "complicity" in this offense, said the prosecution.

The deputy Danièle Obono and the movement Insubordinate France had indicated in a statement Tuesday to have learned "with satisfaction" this referral to trial.

"This publication, particularly outrageous, had legitimately aroused almost unanimous indignation in France and abroad", underline Danièle Obono and LFI.

The deputy, who had lodged a complaint, "now intends to become a civil party in this affair", with the intention "to denounce the trivialization of sexist, racist and xenophobic discourse in our country, trivialization which has led a far-right newspaper to submit, symbolically, a black politician to the crime against humanity that was slavery in Africa ".

In this 7-page story published at the end of August by the ultra-conservative magazine, the deputy for Paris "experiences the responsibility of Africans in the horrors of slavery" in the 18th century, according to the presentation made by the weekly.

The head of state Emmanuel Macron had called the deputy to inform her of his "clear condemnation of any form of racism", while Prime Minister Jean Castex had deplored a "revolting publication".

"Current Values" defended itself from any racism

The opinion magazine replied on Twitter that it was "a fiction depicting the horrors of slavery organized by Africans in the 18th century", "a terrible truth that indigenous people do not want to see".

On BFMTV, Tugdual Denis, deputy editor-in-chief of

, then "apologized to her in a personal capacity".

"We understand, with the extremely violent symbolic charge of this image, that Danièle Obono is shocked," he said, assuring that his newspaper was "not racist".

Asked by AFP on Wednesday, Geoffroy Lejeune said that "this trial will be an opportunity to demonstrate the political postures of those who attacked us on the occasion of this affair, to prove our good faith to those who were troubled, and finally to clearly explain our intentions in this matter: to fight against the discourse of the natives and the war of memories which leads to the fracturing of France ".