The president of the court of appeal put the decision under advisement after the second round of the presidential election.
The Advocate General demanded a sentence of 100 day-fines of 100 euros, i.e. a fine of 10,000 euros which can be transformed into imprisonment in the event of non-payment.
The far-right polemicist and presidential candidate was tried on appeal for a crime against humanity, after having argued in 2019 that Marshal Philippe Pétain had “saved” French Jews.
The trial took place without the presence of Eric Zemmour or his lawyer.
The latter, Me Olivier Pardo, who had requested the dismissal of the trial, was not followed by the court.
He immediately left the courtroom denouncing an "unfair" decision.
"Under these conditions, I have decided that I am not in a condition to defend" Eric Zemmour, he said.
"I find it abnormal that presidential candidates are judged in the middle of the campaign. The judges have already stolen the election from François Fillon (note: in 2017) and from right-wing voters. They want to start again", reacted for his part M Zemmour on his twitter account.
"We are delighted that the court did not grant the request for dismissal, insofar as the comments made by Eric Zemmour are comments that are ignominious and that Mr. Zemmour has every opportunity to defend himself before the court. court since the serenity of the debates is in no way called into question", welcomed on the contrary Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racisme, one of the associations civil party to the trial.
“A litigant like any other”
Me Pardo asked that his client's appeal be postponed after the second round of the presidential election for "reasons of serenity".
“The debates of opinion must take place in the political arena, they must not occupy the courtroom,” he argued.
"This is discriminatory treatment which appears to the defense of Mr. Eric Zemmour unacceptable and which feeds the suspicion of political justice", he insisted.
Olivier Pardo, Eric Zemmour's lawyer, in July 2020 at the Paris court FRANCOIS GUILLOT AFP / Archives
The lawyers for the civil parties, for their part, denounced "a maneuver" by Eric Zemmour's defense to avoid being tried.
"I am a candidate and + so what? +. Candidate or not, Mr. Zemmour remains a litigant like any other", said Me Alain Jakubowicz, the lawyer and former president of the Licra, another civil party alongside in particular the Mrap or the Union of Jewish Students (UEJF).
"The court should have no scruples in judging this case. There is no evidence that Pétain saved French Jews," said Jean-Louis Lagarde, Mrap's lawyer.
This new judicial appointment comes three days after the conviction of Eric Zemmour for incitement to hatred by the Paris court, for his release on unaccompanied migrant minors.
He immediately appealed.
In the case of the comments on Pétain "savior" of the Jews, the ex-star columnist of CNews had been acquitted in February 2021, the court considering that they had been pronounced "at the point of fire during a debate on the war in Syria".
The court had nevertheless recognized that his words contained "the denial of the participation (of Pétain) in the policy of extermination of the Jews carried out by the Nazi regime".
The comments were made in 2019 during a debate on CNews against the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
"One day, in another broadcast, you dared to say that Pétain had saved the French Jews. It's a monstrosity, it's revisionism", had carried away "BHL".
"It's once again the real, I'm sorry," replied the polemicist.
At the hearing in first instance in December 2020, Eric Zemmour defended himself from any challenge to crimes against humanity and considered that the debate on the role of Vichy towards French Jewish citizens should be decided by historians and not by justice.
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