Dieudonné M'bala M'bala
Encyclopedia
Dieudonné M'bala M'bala generally known simply as Dieudonné, is a French comedian, actor and political activist.
Initially a leftist
and anti-racism
activist, he has moved to the far right
of the political spectrum of France
, developing close political and personal relationships with the Front National party and its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen
as well as with prominent Holocaust deniers
such as Robert Faurisson
; however, he claims to be leading a 'justified fight' against Zionism
, and Israel
which he deems racist and oppressive. Dieudonné has been condemned in court several times for antisemitic remarks (see below "Court convictions"). Since 1997, Dieudonné has regularly stood in parliamentary and European Union elections as a candidate at the head of fringe or splinter parties, and has tried and failed to run for two French presidential elections (2002 and 2007).
, Hauts-de-Seine
, the son of a sociologist
from Brittany who exhibits as a painter under the name Josiane Grué, and of an accountant from Ekoudendi, Cameroon
, who lives there now. Dieudonné lives with Noémie Montagne who works as his producer and has five children with her, Bonnie, Merlin, Plume, Noé and Judas. The godfather of the third child, Plume, is the chairman of the Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen
.
's box-office hit Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
in 2002. His last screen appearance to date was in Maurice Barthélémy's box-office bomb Casablanca Driver in 2004. In 1997, the scenic duo "Élie et Dieudonné" split and each went on a solo theater career. In 1998, they reunited in a screen comedy, Le Clone, which was a failure critically and financially.
Dieudonné's successful one-man shows include Pardon Judas (2000), Le divorce de Patrick (2003), and 1905 (2005). Other one-man shows were Mes Excuses (2004), Dépôt de bilan (2006) and J'ai fait l'con (2008), all understood as attacks on political and social opponents and defences of his own positions. Anti-Zionist
, anti-Semitic
statements made within and around these productions led to intense controversy and numerous lawsuits. Following the 2005 civil unrest in France
, Dieudonné also penned a play called Émeutes en banlieue (Riots in the Suburbs, February 2006). In 2009, and surrounded by scandals (see below, "Political activities"), Dieudonné launched two one-man shows: Liberté d’expression and Sandrine. While the latter was a follow-up to Le divorce de Patrick (Sandrine is Patrick's ex-wife), the former was conceived as a series of itinerant "conferences" on "freedom of expression". Started on 18 June 2010 in his theater, Dieudonné's most recent show to date, Mahmoud (standing for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is set to an openly antisemitic tone, caricaturing Jews, slavery and "official" versions of history.
Dieudonné's production company first acted under the name "Bonnie Productions" and now under the name "Les productions de la Plume."
Ahead of the 2007 presidential election
, the National Front paid Dieudonné 60,000 Euro
s for the use of the theater to train FN representatives.
, he fought with his party "Les Utopistes" in Dreux
against National Front candidate Marie-France Stirbois
and received 8 percent of the vote. Verbally and in demonstrations, he also supported migrants without a residence permit (the so-called "sans papiers") and the Palestinians.
Since 2002, Dieudonné has attracted attention by increasingly polemical statements. In an interview for the magazine Lyon
Capitale in January 2002, he described "the Jews" as "a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all, because it was the first" and said he preferred "the charisma of bin Laden
to that of Bush
". He subsequently failed to maintain his bid for running for the 2002 presidential election
.
On 1 December 2003, he appeared live on a television show, disguised as a parody of Israeli settler wearing military fatigues and a hat of Haredi
(Orthodox) Jews. The sketch climaxed with a Hitler salute
, after which Dieudonné shouts out a word. According to Dieudonné, he shouted "Israël", in the persona of the settler. In the following days, some news agencies stated that he shouted "Isra - Heil" or "Heil Israel". He was cleared of charges of antisemitism in a Paris
court after the judge said this was not an attack against Jews in general but against a type of person "distinguished by their political views". At the European Parliament election, 2004
, Dieudonné was candidate of the extreme left-wing party "Euro-Palestine", but left a few months after the election because of disagreements with its Jewish leaders.
Following this television appearance, a Dieudonné show in Lyon (at La Bourse du Travail) on February 5, 2004 was picketed and a bottle containing a corrosive product was thrown in the venue, injuring a spectator. On 11 November, Dieudonné organized a debate with four rabbis of Naturei Karta in the Théâtre de la Main d'Or in Paris.
On 16 February 2005, he declared during a press conference in Algiers
, that the Central Council of French Jews CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) was a "mafia" that had "total control over French policy exercise", called the commemoration of the Holocaust
"memorial pornography" ("pornographie mémorielle") and claimed that the "Zionists of the Centre National de la Cinématographie
" prevented him from making a film about the slave trade. Dieudonné was also trying to appear as a spokesman for French blacks, but, after some initial sympathy, notably from the novelist Calixthe Beyala
, the journalists Antoine Garnier and Claudy Siar as well as the founding members of the Conseil représentatif des associations noires (CRAN), he increasingly met with their rejection.
On April 2005, he went to Auschwitz.
Throughout 2005 and 2006, Dieudonné was often in the company of the senior Front National members Bruno Gollnisch
, Frédéric Châtillon, and Marc George (also known as Marc Robert), the man who would conduct his electoral campaigns in 2007 and 2009. Dieudonné also frequently appeared together with the conspiracy theorist
Thierry Meyssan
and the former Marxist
and current right-wing radical Alain Soral
, a confidant of Marine
and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Under the influence of Soral's writings and polemic
s, Dieudonné was acquainted with his militant antisemitism of French nationalist inspiration. In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois. Demonstrating shoulder to shoulder with Islamists
, he also marched on 11 February 2006 in the Parisian demonstration against the Muhammad cartoons
and traveled at the end of August 2006 with Châtillon, Meyssan and Soral in Lebanon
, to meet MPs and fighters of the Hezbollah. Some Jews reacted angrily to his comments on this tour. On 2 March 2005 four French Jews attacked him in Martinique
. The assailants were imprisoned for a month. In May 2006 he was involved in a fight with two teenage Jews in Paris, one of whom he sprayed with tear gas. Dieudonné claimed that the teenagers attacked him first; both parties pressed charges, but the lawsuits were not pursued. In France and abroad, Dieudonné became increasingly perceived as an extremist of a type until then uncommon in Europe: in the introduction to a March 2006 interview, The Independent
called him a "French Louis Farrakhan
... obsessed with Jews".
Serge Thion
wrote for his campaign web site under the pseudonym "Serge Noith", as did also the longtime secretary of the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy
, Maria Poumier. After the end of his candidacy, Dieudonné appeared several times publicly in the company of Jean-Marie Le Pen and traveled to Cameroon with Le Pen's wife Jany. However, officially, Dieudonné called for the election of anti-globalization militant José Bové
, despite Bové asking Dieudonné not to do so.
On 26 December 2008 at an event at the Parc de la Villette
in Paris, Dieudonné awarded the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson
an "insolent outcast" prize [prix de l'infréquentabilité et de l'insolence]. The award was presented by one of Dieudonné's assistants, Jacky, dressed in a concentration camp
uniform with a yellow badge
. This caused a scandal and earned him his sixth court conviction to date. On 29 January 2009 he celebrated the 80th birthday of Faurisson in his theater, in the midst of a representative gathering of Holocaust deniers, right-wing radicals, and radical Shiites. Dieudonné and Faurisson further appeared together in a video making fun of the Holocaust
and its commemoration.
On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dieudonné announced that he would run for the 2009 European Parliament election
in the Île-de-France
at the head of an "anti-communitarist and anti-Zionist" party. Other candidates on his party's electoral list are Alain Soral and the Holocaust denier and former member of Les Verts
Ginette Skandrani (also known as Ginette Hess), while Thierry Meyssan and Afrocentrist Kémi Seba, founder of the "Tribu Ka" are members of the party but do not run. The campaign would be conducted again by Marc George. In spite of the association of Dieudonné's party with the Shiite Centre Zahra, whose president Yahia Gouasmi also runs on his list, his candidacy was supported by Fernand Le Rachinel
, a former high ranking executive of the Front National and official printer
of the party. In early May 2009, the French government studied the possibility of banning the party, but on May 24, Justice minister Rachida Dati
acknowledged that, in spite of moral objections, there was no legal ground to do so. On May 28, it became known that Carlos "the Jackal"
also expressed his hope Dieudonné would make it to Strasbourg
. The Parti antisioniste finally scored 1.30% of the votes.
Initially a leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
and anti-racism
Anti-racism
Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
activist, he has moved to the far right
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
of the political spectrum of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, developing close political and personal relationships with the Front National party and its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
as well as with prominent Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
such as Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
; however, he claims to be leading a 'justified fight' against Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
which he deems racist and oppressive. Dieudonné has been condemned in court several times for antisemitic remarks (see below "Court convictions"). Since 1997, Dieudonné has regularly stood in parliamentary and European Union elections as a candidate at the head of fringe or splinter parties, and has tried and failed to run for two French presidential elections (2002 and 2007).
Personal life
Dieudonné was born in Fontenay-aux-RosesFontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.École Normale Supérieure was a girls school located in the area....
, Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
, the son of a sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
from Brittany who exhibits as a painter under the name Josiane Grué, and of an accountant from Ekoudendi, Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
, who lives there now. Dieudonné lives with Noémie Montagne who works as his producer and has five children with her, Bonnie, Merlin, Plume, Noé and Judas. The godfather of the third child, Plume, is the chairman of the Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
.
Acting career
In the 1990s, Dieudonné appeared on stage and on television together with the Jewish comedian and actor Élie Semoun. From the mid-1990s he appeared mostly in supporting roles in several French film comedies. His most successful screen appearance to date was in Alain ChabatAlain Chabat
Alain Chabat is a French actor and director who appeared in La Cité de la peur, French Twist, The Taste of Others and The Science of Sleep.- Life and career :Chabat was born in Oran, French Algeria. He is Jewish....
's box-office hit Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, originally titled Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre, is a 2002 French-German film based on the comic book Astérix et Cléopatre by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo and a sequel for the 1999 movie Asterix & Obelix Take On Caesar. It was the most expensive French...
in 2002. His last screen appearance to date was in Maurice Barthélémy's box-office bomb Casablanca Driver in 2004. In 1997, the scenic duo "Élie et Dieudonné" split and each went on a solo theater career. In 1998, they reunited in a screen comedy, Le Clone, which was a failure critically and financially.
Dieudonné's successful one-man shows include Pardon Judas (2000), Le divorce de Patrick (2003), and 1905 (2005). Other one-man shows were Mes Excuses (2004), Dépôt de bilan (2006) and J'ai fait l'con (2008), all understood as attacks on political and social opponents and defences of his own positions. Anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
, anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
statements made within and around these productions led to intense controversy and numerous lawsuits. Following the 2005 civil unrest in France
2005 civil unrest in France
The 2005 civil unrest in France of October and November was a series of riots by mostly Muslim North African youths in Paris and other French cities, involving mainly the burning of cars and public buildings at night starting on 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois...
, Dieudonné also penned a play called Émeutes en banlieue (Riots in the Suburbs, February 2006). In 2009, and surrounded by scandals (see below, "Political activities"), Dieudonné launched two one-man shows: Liberté d’expression and Sandrine. While the latter was a follow-up to Le divorce de Patrick (Sandrine is Patrick's ex-wife), the former was conceived as a series of itinerant "conferences" on "freedom of expression". Started on 18 June 2010 in his theater, Dieudonné's most recent show to date, Mahmoud (standing for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is set to an openly antisemitic tone, caricaturing Jews, slavery and "official" versions of history.
Dieudonné's production company first acted under the name "Bonnie Productions" and now under the name "Les productions de la Plume."
Théâtre de la Main d'Or
Dieudonné is the owner of the Théâtre de la Main d'Or in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which is used for both stand-up comedy and political events by himself and friends and allies such as the militant antisemitic "Tribu Ka".Ahead of the 2007 presidential election
French presidential election, 2007
The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term.The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy...
, the National Front paid Dieudonné 60,000 Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s for the use of the theater to train FN representatives.
Beginnings
Dieudonné was initially active on the anti-racist left. In the 1997 legislative electionFrench legislative election, 1997
French legislative election took place on 25 May and 1 June 1997 to elect the 11th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. It was the consequence of President Jacques Chirac's decision to call the legislative election one year before the deadline....
, he fought with his party "Les Utopistes" in Dreux
Dreux
Dreux is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-History:Dreux was known in ancient times as Durocassium, the capital of the Durocasses Celtic tribe. Despite the legend, its name was not related with Druids. The Romans established here a fortified camp known as Castrum...
against National Front candidate Marie-France Stirbois
Marie-France Stirbois
Marie-France Stirbois was a French National Front politician, representing Dreux from 1989 to 1993, and a Member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1999 and from 2003 to 2004.An old militant of the National Front, Marie-France Stirbois marked French political life by achieving Marie-France...
and received 8 percent of the vote. Verbally and in demonstrations, he also supported migrants without a residence permit (the so-called "sans papiers") and the Palestinians.
2002-2006
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
Capitale in January 2002, he described "the Jews" as "a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all, because it was the first" and said he preferred "the charisma of bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
to that of Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
". He subsequently failed to maintain his bid for running for the 2002 presidential election
French presidential election, 2002
The 2002 French presidential election consisted of a first round election on 21 April 2002, and a runoff election between the top two candidates on 5 May 2002. This presidential contest attracted a greater than usual amount of international attention because of Le Pen's unexpected appearance in...
.
On 1 December 2003, he appeared live on a television show, disguised as a parody of Israeli settler wearing military fatigues and a hat of Haredi
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
(Orthodox) Jews. The sketch climaxed with a Hitler salute
Hitler salute
The Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
, after which Dieudonné shouts out a word. According to Dieudonné, he shouted "Israël", in the persona of the settler. In the following days, some news agencies stated that he shouted "Isra - Heil" or "Heil Israel". He was cleared of charges of antisemitism in a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
court after the judge said this was not an attack against Jews in general but against a type of person "distinguished by their political views". At the European Parliament election, 2004
European Parliament election, 2004
Elections to the European Parliament were held from 10 June 2004 to 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom...
, Dieudonné was candidate of the extreme left-wing party "Euro-Palestine", but left a few months after the election because of disagreements with its Jewish leaders.
Following this television appearance, a Dieudonné show in Lyon (at La Bourse du Travail) on February 5, 2004 was picketed and a bottle containing a corrosive product was thrown in the venue, injuring a spectator. On 11 November, Dieudonné organized a debate with four rabbis of Naturei Karta in the Théâtre de la Main d'Or in Paris.
On 16 February 2005, he declared during a press conference in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, that the Central Council of French Jews CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) was a "mafia" that had "total control over French policy exercise", called the commemoration of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
"memorial pornography" ("pornographie mémorielle") and claimed that the "Zionists of the Centre National de la Cinématographie
Centre National de la Cinématographie
Le Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée or CNC is a French agency of the Ministry of Culture, responsible for the production and promotion of cinematic and audiovisual arts in France, is a publicly owned establishment, with legal and financial autonomy.Created by law on 25 October 1946...
" prevented him from making a film about the slave trade. Dieudonné was also trying to appear as a spokesman for French blacks, but, after some initial sympathy, notably from the novelist Calixthe Beyala
Calixthe Beyala
Calixthe Beyala is a Cameroonian writer who writes in French.She grew up in Douala with her sister. In 1978, She left Cameroon for France...
, the journalists Antoine Garnier and Claudy Siar as well as the founding members of the Conseil représentatif des associations noires (CRAN), he increasingly met with their rejection.
On April 2005, he went to Auschwitz.
Throughout 2005 and 2006, Dieudonné was often in the company of the senior Front National members Bruno Gollnisch
Bruno Gollnisch
Bruno Gollnisch is a French academic and politician, a member of the National Front far-right party, and a member of the European Parliament. He was chairman of the European Parliamentary group 'Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty' in 2007, which was dissolved in November 2007 following the...
, Frédéric Châtillon, and Marc George (also known as Marc Robert), the man who would conduct his electoral campaigns in 2007 and 2009. Dieudonné also frequently appeared together with the conspiracy theorist
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
Thierry Meyssan
Thierry Meyssan
Thierry Meyssan is a French journalist and political activist.He is the author of investigations into the extreme right wing , as well as into the Catholic Church Thierry Meyssan (born 18 May 1957 in Talence, Gironde) is a French journalist and political activist.He is the author of investigations...
and the former Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and current right-wing radical Alain Soral
Alain Soral
Alain Soral is a French essayist, and film maker, as well as being the author of several polemical essays. He is the brother of the actress Agnès Soral. Soral lives in the French Basque Country. Since June 2004, he has been a boxing coach...
, a confidant of Marine
Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen is a French politician, a lawyer by profession and the president of the Front National since 16 January 2011...
and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Under the influence of Soral's writings and polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
s, Dieudonné was acquainted with his militant antisemitism of French nationalist inspiration. In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois. Demonstrating shoulder to shoulder with Islamists
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
, he also marched on 11 February 2006 in the Parisian demonstration against the Muhammad cartoons
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
and traveled at the end of August 2006 with Châtillon, Meyssan and Soral in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, to meet MPs and fighters of the Hezbollah. Some Jews reacted angrily to his comments on this tour. On 2 March 2005 four French Jews attacked him in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
. The assailants were imprisoned for a month. In May 2006 he was involved in a fight with two teenage Jews in Paris, one of whom he sprayed with tear gas. Dieudonné claimed that the teenagers attacked him first; both parties pressed charges, but the lawsuits were not pursued. In France and abroad, Dieudonné became increasingly perceived as an extremist of a type until then uncommon in Europe: in the introduction to a March 2006 interview, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
called him a "French Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...
... obsessed with Jews".
2007-2009
Dieudonné wanted to finally represent politically these ever radicalized positions in the French presidential elections, 2007, but for logistical reasons he could not maintain his candidacy, whose campaign was conducted by Marc Robert (a.k.a Marc George). The convicted Holocaust denierHolocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
Serge Thion
Serge Thion
Serge Thion is a French sociologist. A former researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, he was dismissed from his position there for Holocaust denial activities.- Career :...
wrote for his campaign web site under the pseudonym "Serge Noith", as did also the longtime secretary of the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy or Ragaa Garaudy is a French philosopher. Formerly a prominent communist author, he has converted to Islam and written several books which have been controversial due to his anti-Zionist positions and denial of the Holocaust.-Early life, politics and religion:Born to Catholic and...
, Maria Poumier. After the end of his candidacy, Dieudonné appeared several times publicly in the company of Jean-Marie Le Pen and traveled to Cameroon with Le Pen's wife Jany. However, officially, Dieudonné called for the election of anti-globalization militant José Bové
José Bové
Joseph Bové is a French farmer and syndicalist, member of the alter-globalization movement, and spokesman for Via Campesina. He was one of the twelve official candidates in the 2007 French presidential election...
, despite Bové asking Dieudonné not to do so.
On 26 December 2008 at an event at the Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette
The Parc de la Villette is a park in Paris at the outer edge of the 19th arrondissement, bordering the Boulevard Périphérique, which is a ring road around Paris, and the suburban department of Seine-Saint-Denis.-History:...
in Paris, Dieudonné awarded the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
an "insolent outcast" prize [prix de l'infréquentabilité et de l'insolence]. The award was presented by one of Dieudonné's assistants, Jacky, dressed in a concentration camp
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
uniform with a yellow badge
Yellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
. This caused a scandal and earned him his sixth court conviction to date. On 29 January 2009 he celebrated the 80th birthday of Faurisson in his theater, in the midst of a representative gathering of Holocaust deniers, right-wing radicals, and radical Shiites. Dieudonné and Faurisson further appeared together in a video making fun of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
and its commemoration.
On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dieudonné announced that he would run for the 2009 European Parliament election
European Parliament election, 2009
Elections to the European Parliament were held in the 27 member states of the European Union between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament were elected to represent some 500 million Europeans, making these the biggest trans-national elections in history...
in the Île-de-France
Île-de-France (European Parliament constituency)
In European elections, Île-de-France is a constituency of the European Parliament. It consists of the region of Île-de-France.-2009:-2004:Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won....
at the head of an "anti-communitarist and anti-Zionist" party. Other candidates on his party's electoral list are Alain Soral and the Holocaust denier and former member of Les Verts
The Greens (France)
The Greens were a Green political party to the centre-left of the political spectrum in France. They had officially been in existence since 1984, but their spiritual roots could be traced as far back as René Dumont’s candidacy for the presidency in 1974...
Ginette Skandrani (also known as Ginette Hess), while Thierry Meyssan and Afrocentrist Kémi Seba, founder of the "Tribu Ka" are members of the party but do not run. The campaign would be conducted again by Marc George. In spite of the association of Dieudonné's party with the Shiite Centre Zahra, whose president Yahia Gouasmi also runs on his list, his candidacy was supported by Fernand Le Rachinel
Fernand Le Rachinel
Fernand Le Rachinel is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament for the north-west of France. He is a member of the Front National, and is therefore a Non-Inscrit in the European Parliament...
, a former high ranking executive of the Front National and official printer
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
of the party. In early May 2009, the French government studied the possibility of banning the party, but on May 24, Justice minister Rachida Dati
Rachida Dati
Rachida Dati is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament, representing Île-de-France. Before her election, she held the cabinet post of Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice. She was a spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy during the French presidential election of 2007...
acknowledged that, in spite of moral objections, there was no legal ground to do so. On May 28, it became known that Carlos "the Jackal"
Carlos the Jackal
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez , better known as Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan pro-Palestinian currently serving a life sentence in France for shooting to death two French secret agents and a Lebanese informer in 1975....
also expressed his hope Dieudonné would make it to Strasbourg
Seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
The city of Strasbourg is the official seat of the European Parliament. The institution is legally bound to meet there twelve sessions a year lasting about four days each. Other work takes place in Brussels and Luxembourg City...
. The Parti antisioniste finally scored 1.30% of the votes.
Court convictions
- On June 14, 2006 Dieudonné was sentenced to a penalty of 4,500 Euro for defamation after having called a prominent Jewish television presenter a "secret donor of the child-murdering Israeli army".
- On November 15, 2007, an appellate court convicted him to a 5,000 Euro fine because he had treated "the Jews" as "slave traders".
- On 26 June 2008, he was sentenced in the last judicial instance to a 7,000 Euro fine for his designation of the Holocaust as "memorial pornography".
- On 27 February 2009 he was fined 75,000 Canadian dollarCanadian dollarThe Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
s in MontrealMontrealMontreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
for defamatory statements with anti-semitic undertones against the singer and actor Patrick BruelPatrick BruelPatrick Bruel is a French singer, actor, and professional poker player of Algerian Jewish descent.-Biography:...
. - On 26 March 2009 Dieudonné was sentenced to a total of 3,000 Euros for defamation after having criticised Elisabeth Schemla, a Jewish journalist who ran the now defunct Proche-Orient.Info website. He declared on 31 May 2005 that the website wanted to "eradicate Dieudonné from the audiovisual landscape" and had said of him that "he's an anti-semite, he's the son of Hitler, he will exterminate everyone".
- On 27 October 2009, he was sentenced to a fine of 10,000 Euros for "public insult of people of Jewish faith or origin" related to his show with Robert FaurissonRobert FaurissonRobert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
. - On 8 June 2010, he was sentenced to a fine of 10,000 € for defamation towards the International League against Racism and Anti-SemitismInternational League against Racism and Anti-SemitismThe International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism – or Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme in French— was established in 1926, and is opposed to intolerance, xenophobia and exclusion....
, which he had called "a mafiaMafiaThe Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
-like association that organizes censorship".
Publications
- Lettres d'insulte, illustrations by Tignous, Le Cherche-midi, 2002, (ISBN 2862747971)
- Peut-on tout dire?, Interviews conducted by Philippe Gavi and Robert Ménard, in parallel with Bruno Gaccio, Editions Mordicus, 2010, (ISBN 978-2-918414-00-1)
External links
- Official MySpace
- Bernard Schmid: Dieudonné, der gar nicht lustige Komiker, hagalil.com, 21 February 2005
- Gudrun Eussner: "Der Effekt Dieudonné – weitere rassistische Aggressionen gegen Jude," 6 and 7 March 2006
- Dieudonné's Anti-Zionist Party