Judged Monday for contempt of court, Dieudonné says he was the victim of a "deepfake"

The trial of the controversial comedian Dieudonné for contempt, public insult and defamation against a magistrate resumes Monday in Versailles, the defendant contesting being the author of the incriminated video by claiming to be the victim of digital rigging, the "deepfake".

During a first hearing on November 16, Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, now 55, categorically denied any connection with the video for which he was being prosecuted, citing this very sophisticated technique consisting, among other things, to superimpose one face on another.

Faced with this unexpected defense, the court finally decided, at the end of the proceedings, to order new investigations into the authenticity of the video and to postpone the trial until March 15.

Since then, investigative acts have been carried out, in particular to compare the filming location of Dieudonné's sketches with the video in question, said a judicial source.

"It's not me on this video"

In this video published on April 8, 2020 on YouTube and then withdrawn, is named a magistrate from Nanterre who had, a few days earlier, sentenced a pharmacist to four months in prison, for illegal sale of protective masks against the coronavirus.

We hear Dieudonné criticizing this "subsidized" and "very nasty" magistrate, nicknamed her "my pussy" and pretending to spit.

"The day we arrive at the Liberation for example, there are some who will be shorn. (...) We will no longer be able to make you quilts", he adds, thus comparing the magistrate to the women accused of to have collaborated with the Nazi regime.

"It's not me on this video. I am neither the author nor the broadcaster. This video amused me in some ways, but I have nothing to do with this story," had supported Dieudonné during the November hearing.

His lawyer David de Stefano had shown extracts of documentaries explaining the technique of "deepfake", showing fake Emmanuel Macron or fake Barack Obama.

"This is a first", declares the lawyer of the magistrate

The prosecutor had swept aside the argument, noting that the defendant had not filed a complaint for identity theft and requesting a fine of 20,000 euros.

The magistrate's lawyer, Me Rémi-Pierre Drai, sees this case as a "first": "It is the first time in press law that an alleged perpetrator uses the defense of 'deepfake' and which more is Dieudonné M'bala M'bala whose extended criminal record shows that he is a practitioner of controversial video, "he said.

Contacted, Dieudonné's lawyer did not wish to speak.

His last conviction dates back to February 18, when he was fined 9,000 euros on appeal for complicity in an anti-Semitic insult, after the publication of a video on the Shoah.