France May Ban Black Comedian for Hate Speech

There is real harassment of Jews in France these days  -- not unlike early 1930s Germany -- so there is reason for concern.  The "comedian" could be seen as engaging in incitement to violence

France is considering banning performances by a black comedian whose shows have repeatedly insulted the memory of Holocaust victims and could threaten public order, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday.

He said his ministry is studying legal ways to ban shows by Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a comedian repeatedly fined for hate speech who ran in the 2009 European Parliament elections at the head of an “Anti-Zionist List” including far-right activists.

Valls announced the move after Jewish groups complained to President Francois Hollande about Dieudonne's trademark straight-arm gesture, which they call a “Nazi salute in reverse” and link to a growing frequency of anti-Semitic remarks and acts in France.

“Dieudonne M'bala M'bala doesn't seem to recognize any limits any more,” Valls said in a statement announcing the legal review aimed at banning his public appearances.

“From one comment to the next, as he has shown in several television shows, he attacks the memory of Holocaust victims in an obvious and unbearable way,” he said.

France has Europe's largest Jewish minority, estimated at about 600,000, but also sees a steady emigration to Israel of Jews who say they no longer feel safe here.

In the worst recent anti-Semitic incident, a French Islamist killed a rabbi and three pupils at a Jewish school last year in the southwestern French city of Toulouse.

Dieudonne, as he is known on stage, has responded to the  criticism from prominent Jewish figures by threatening to sue them for linking his gesture - a downward straight arm touched at the shoulder by the opposite hand - to the Hitler salute.

He calls the gesture “la quenelle” - the word for an elongated creamed fish dumpling - and says it stands for his anti-Zionist and anti-establishment views, not anti-Semitism.

The gesture has gone viral on social media recently, with mostly young fans displaying it at parties and sports events. Some do it while in the audience at live television shows.

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