Amid vocal protests by leaders of French Jewry on the judiciary’s handling of antisemitic crimes, French courts made a series of tough rulings on inciters to hatred of Jews.
In three separate rulings last week, French judges rejected the appeal of the far-right Holocaust denier Alain Soral against his prison sentence, affirmed the eviction of his associate and career antisemite Dieudonne M’bala M’bala from his Paris headquarters and slapped a 1,500 Euros fine on a teacher who inveighed against Israel and the Jews.
The rulings came amid unprecedented criticism by CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, the country’s EJC affiliate, and other French Jewish groups on judicial actions and decision that it said were too soft on antisemites, encouraged terrorism or amounted to a cover-up of hate crimes against Jews.
Soral, who also has multiple convictions — including for saying Adolf Hitler “should have finished the job” — was sentenced to three months in jail in March.
