Legislative: a Reconquest candidate! sentenced on appeal for "incitement to hatred"

Europe 1 with AFP 5:39 p.m., May 30, 2022

Jérémie Piano, candidate of Eric Zemmour's party Reconquest!

in the legislative elections in the Bouches-du-Rhône, was sentenced on appeal on Monday for "incitement to hatred".

The former executive of the former far-right group Génération Identitaire, dissolved by the state in March 2021, appeared alongside another ex-activist of this association, Romain Fornasier, for the wild posting on municipal signs in Aix-en-Provence in May 2020 with the slogan "Immigration Racaille Islamisation. Reconquest".

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 Éric Zemmour fined 10,000 euros for incitement to hatred

Sentenced to a fine of 1,000 euros

The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal sentenced the two men to a suspended fine of 1,000 euros and to pay a symbolic 1 euro to the civil parties, including SOS Racisme and the Human Rights League (LDH) .

Only Romain Fornasier appeared at the hearing on Monday. 

At first instance, the Aix-en-Provence criminal court had sentenced Jérémie Piano in June to a fine of 1,500 including 1,000 suspended and Romain Fornasier to a fine of 1,000 euros including 500 suspended.

The prosecutor had requested a five-month suspended sentence against them, a citizenship course and the posting of the decision on the municipal signs they had used.

Already sentenced for "incitement to racial hatred" in 2021

Jérémie Piano has already been given a two-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 3,000 euros in September 2021 for "provoking racial hatred" by the Saint-Gaudens criminal court, in Haute-Garonne.

In a YouTube video devoted to an operation by the identity group in January 2021, he mentioned "a migratory invasion", "thousands of illegal immigrants already in France" including "probably thieves, rapists and potential terrorists".