French court clears Jean-Marie Le Pen over “oven batch” remark about Jewish singer
A French court has cleared Jean-Marie Le Pen over his remark about a Jewish singer, in which he made a joke about the Holocaust.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the French far-right party National Front (now National Rally), went on trial earlier this year after being charged with “inciting antisemitic hatred”.
The charge against Mr Le Pen originated from a 2014 video on the Party’s website, in which Mr Le Pen reportedly denounced several celebrities who disagreed with his political views. When asked about the French singer and actor Patrick Bruel, who is Jewish, Mr Le Pen seemingly mocked the Holocaust and Mr Bruel, saying: “I’m not surprised. Listen, next time we’ll do a whole oven batch!”
Mr Le Pen reportedly denied the allegation of Jew-hate, claiming that his comments carried no antisemitic messages “except for my political enemies or imbeciles”.
Both the court and judge disagreed, with the judge stating that Mr Le Pen had targeted Jewish people with his comments. She added, however, that while he cleared “relished” in appeasing his supporters with his comments, they did not amount to “inciting discrimination and violence.”
This was not the first time that Mr Le Pen has faced trial due to antisemitism-related comments. In 2018, France’s Court of Cassation upheld a conviction against Mr Le Pen for Holocaust denial after he said that the Holocaust was “a detail” of World War II. Subsequently, National Front’s leader Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Mr Le Pen, expelled him from the Party.
In June, President Macron condemned antisemitism in an historic ten-minute long video address to the American Jewish Committee. Reiterating how important it was for France to have adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, he went on to say that the Definition alone “is not enough”, and that France needs to strengthen their actions.
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