• The Toulon prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for public insult against Michel-Ange Flori.

  • This Var advertiser used one of his 350 billboards to compare Emmanuel Macron to Adolf Hitler.

It is no longer his first attempt.

The Toulon prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation against Michel-Ange Flori, an advertising poster from the Var, for public insult.

"I seized the departmental security of the Toulon police station as part of a preliminary investigation," Toulon prosecutor Bernard Marchal told AFP, specifying that the qualification retained could change.

The opening of this procedure, revealed by France Bleu Provence, follows the posting on a billboard of a caricature of Emmanuel Macron as Adolf Hitler.

On a 4x3 format, we see the president in the guise of the former Nazi dictator with this inscription: "Obey, get vaccinated", accompanied by the acronym LREM related to a swastika.

"I can't be in the software"

This is not the first time that Michelangelo Flori has used his billboards to "communicate on [his] moods and current affairs". “I use two of my 350 billboards, one at the entrance to Toulon and one towards La Seyne-sur-Mer, which I change every two weeks. This refers to the excesses of the measures announced by the executive, then denied the next day, then amended the day after. I have the impression that we are dreaming with all these ostentatious measures of the freedoms they use like children in a toolbox, ”he explains to

20 Minutes.

Installed last weekend, the sign has since been tagged with the word “shame”. “I'm just comparing the elements of language, with a parallel on the Holocaust. I use what happened in history. It is a metaphor, just like the work of Charlie Chaplin

The Dictator 

who the better to denounce the filthy beast, Hitler, had taken on its features. I am a provocateur, I am not agitated, I point the finger at drifts and I cannot be in the soft, ”he defends himself.

The advertising display has already been sued by BFMTV for posting "The police talk to you every day on BFM TV", he was sentenced in summary proceedings but the judgment on the merits has not taken place.

“They did not hesitate to broadcast my panel on their channel,” he emphasizes.

As for the fear of a new conviction?

“Not at all, I go to the beach and I drink mojitos.

And I always think about what I do, I am an artisan defender of freedom of expression, ”he says.

Michel-Ange Flori risks up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros in the event of a conviction for defamation.

Justice

Var: Who is the Var advertiser sentenced to pay 32,000 euros to BFMTV?

Media

Marseille: BFMTV sues a Var poster accused of denigrating his brand

  • Investigation

  • Adolf Hitler

  • Society

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Publicity