Paris (AFP)

Recently condemned for anti-Muslim remarks, polemicist Eric Zemmour is targeted by a new investigation after his violent charge against immigration and Islam, at a meeting organized by relatives of the former member of extreme Marion Maréchal right.

In this speech, pronounced Saturday at the "Convention of the Right", he attacked, among others, immigrants "colonizers" and "Islamization of the street". He also cited the writer Renaud Camus, theorist of the "great replacement" of the white and Christian population by a Muslim immigrant population.

"In France, as in all of Europe, all our problems are aggravated - I do not say created - by immigration: school, housing, unemployment, social deficits, public debt, public order, prisons, professional qualifications, emergency hospitals, drugs ... And all our problems aggravated by immigration are aggravated by Islam.This is double punishment, "said Zemmour.

The Paris prosecutor's office announced Tuesday the opening of this investigation for "public insults because of the origin or membership or non-membership of a particular ethnicity, nation, race or religion" and "provocation discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or group of persons on the basis of their origin or belonging to or not belonging to an ethnic group, nation, race or religion determined. "

"I would be curious to know if the prosecutor's office has read the entirety of Éric Zemmour's speech because it is settled case law that even harsh criticism of a religion is not reprehensible. no offense of blasphemy in France ", reacted to AFP Me Olivier Pardo, the lawyer of the polemist. When asked about immigration, the lawyer did not wish to react.

These statements sparked an uproar, right up to the government. The Prime Minister in person, Édouard Philippe, condemned speeches "nauseating and deeply contrary to the idea that we are made of France and the Republic".

- "Error of assessment" -

The National Observatory against Islamophobia, a body that depends on the French Council of Muslim worship, for its part denounced Tuesday an "unacceptable" speech that "hides a clear desire to fracture society."

In mid-September, Éric Zemmour was finally sentenced, after the dismissal of his appeal on points of law, to a fine of 3,000 euros for provoking religious hatred after anti-Muslim remarks in 2016.

During the broadcast "C to you" broadcast on September 6, 2016 on France 5, he had said that France lived "for thirty years an invasion" and that "in countless French suburbs where many girls are veiled ", was played a" struggle to Islamize a territory "," a jihad ".

The live broadcast of the speech of Eric Zemmour Saturday by LCI has also resulted in "nearly 400" referrals to the Higher Council for Audiovisual (CSA), said Monday.

The TF1 group channel has acknowledged an "error of appreciation". "The broadcast of the speech in the state was not the appropriate format for our channel," said his direction Sunday in a statement. "There was a contradiction and deconstruction of Eric Zemmour's words, but it was after the fact".

© 2019 AFP