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JANUARY 15, 2015

Why French Law Treats Dieudonné and CharlieHebdo Differently

BY ALEXANDER STILLE

O

The French comedian Dieudonné responded in characteristic style—provocatively—to lastweek’s terror attacks.PHOTOGRAPH BY GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS

n the same day that the French satirical magazine CharlieHebdo immediately sold out an initial run of five million

copies of its latest issue—which featured a cover image of theprophet Muhammad—French police arrested the comedian andactivist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala for writing on his Facebookpage, “Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly.”* Dieudonné was charged with“incitement of terrorism,” for appearing to offer a gesture ofsolidarity with Amedy Coulibaly, the Islamist gunman whomurdered four hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris lastFriday, apparently in concert with the terrorists who carried out themassacre at Charlie Hebdo’s offices two days earlier.

The juxtaposition of the two events—the celebration of a magazinethat routinely publishes cartoons considered blasphemous andoffensive by many of the world’s Muslims and the muscularprosecution of a relentlessly provocative black comedian—has

immediately exposed France to charges of hypocrisy and doublestandards. To many French Muslims, it seems as if it’s open seasonfor ridicule and anti-Muslim sentiment, while the full power of thestate is ready to come down on Dieudonné, who thumbs his nose atthe French establishment and enjoys making provocative and thinlyveiled anti-Semitic jokes.

The Facebook post was a shrewd move by Dieudonné. As I havewritten for this site before, the comedian has played a complex cat-and-mouse game with the French state(http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-case-of-dieudonn-a-french-comedians-hate) for years, earning himself araft of trials and half a dozen convictions for inciting racial hatredwhile, at the same time, building a considerable following,particularly among disaffected young people of North African andAfrican origin. His comic performances have long included jokessuch as “The Germans should have finished the job in 1945.”Charlie Hebdo, for its part, has survived forty-eight trials over thepast twenty-two years(http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2015/01/08/charlie-hebdo-22-ans-de-proces-en-tous-genres_4551824_3224.html), accordingto Le Monde, and has lost a total of nine times, generally for“injure”—personal defamation—rather than hate speech, after, forinstance, describing a journalist as “a complete and utter cretin” anda right-wing politician as “the bitch of Buchenwald.” But attemptsto punish the publication for religious insults have generally failed,whether it was referring to Pope John Paul II as “un pape de merde”(a shitty pope) or publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The different treatment accorded to Charlie Hebdo and Dieudonnéis, however, built into France’s complex cluster of laws regulatingprotected speech. These laws are alternately very free and highlyrestrictive. Right after the French Revolution, France abrogated itsold laws making blasphemy a crime—and so Charlie Hebdo’sblasphemous depictions of Muhammad are not a crime. At thesame time, France’s press laws, which date to the late nineteenth

century, make it a crime to “provoke discrimination, hatred, orviolence toward a person or group of persons because of their originor belonging to a particular ethnicity, nation, race, or religion.” Inother words, you can ridicule the prophet, but you cannot incitehatred toward his followers. To take two more examples, the actressBrigitte Bardot was convicted and fined for having written, in 2006,about France’s Muslims, “We are tired of being led around by thenose by this population that is destroying our country.” Meanwhile,the writer Michel Houellebecq (whose new novel was featured inthe issue of Charlie Hebdo that came out just before the attack) wasbrought up on charges, but acquitted, for having said in aninterview that Islam “is the stupidest religion.” Bardot was clearlydirecting hostility toward Muslim people, and was thus foundguilty, while Houellebecq was criticizing their religion, which isblasphemous, but not a crime, in France.

This complex distinction reflects modern France’s anti-clericalroots: individuals are protected, but churches and their doctrines arenot. There was a powerful desire among the French Republicans todestroy the hegemony of the Catholic Church after the Republicwas definitively reëstablished in 1871. This desire did not, however,extend to the creation of something akin to a First Amendment inFrance. Freedom of expression is mentioned prominently in theRights of Man, but in practice it is far more restricted than in theU.S., and contains many confusing exceptions. There is a law, forexample, passed in 1881, against insulting the head of state. In2008, when Nicolas Sarkozy was President, a man in a crowdrefused to shake his hand. Sarkozy said angrily, “Casse-toi,pauv’con!,” which means something like “Get lost, stupid jerk.” Butwhen a protester later brought a sign reading “Casse-toi,pauv’con!” to a public meeting attended by Sarkozy, the man wasarrested and brought up on charges. According to French law, thePresident of the Republic can insult you, but you can’t insult him—even with his own words.

In 1990, France passed a law that made it a crime to deny the

In 1990, France passed a law that made it a crime to deny theHolocaust. Dieudonné has flouted this law by inviting onstageduring his performances—to thunderous applause—RobertFaurisson, a notorious Holocaust denier. But Dieudonné avoidedlegal trouble by not actually remarking on Faurisson’s theories. In2013, the French Parliament passed a law against the “direct” or“indirect” incitement of terrorism, and it is this law that is beinginvoked to prosecute Dieudonné for his recent Facebook post.

These kinds of exceptions, selective restrictions, and ambiguities inFrance’s freedom-of-expression laws have left the countryvulnerable to charges of political favoritism. France might considereither a broader conception of free speech—the notion that theanswer to bad speech is more speech—or doing a better job ofclarifying what is allowed, and why. That it does not relates, oncemore, to France’s anti-clerical roots.

France’s version of the separation of church and state—knownas laicité—has a much more anti-religious flavor than theestablishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prevents theestablishment of a state-sponsored Church not in order to suppressall public expression of religion but to allow a multitude of faiths tooperate freely. In France, the long battle by Republicans against theChurch generated broad hostility to most expressions of religion inpublic. This tradition came to the fore in 2004, when theParliament passed the “veil” law prohibiting Muslim girls fromwearing headscarves in public schools, and in 2010, when itprohibited face-covering veils in public places.* While the law alsoincluded a ban against wearing yarmulkes and “large crosses” atschool, the law was clearly inspired by a desire to crack down on theability of France’s Muslims to express a separate identity in public.In the U.S., such a ban would be opposed by conservatives andliberals alike as a serious limitation on religious freedom andfreedom of expression.

Although the French are in no mood for compromise at the

Although the French are in no mood for compromise at themoment, they might want to reflect on the fact that America’sMuslim minority, which is free to wear headscarves or not, is farmore integrated into American life than France’s. The immediateresponse in France to the recent massacre has been more forcefullyto push its “our way or the highway” form of assimilation, whichhas, frankly, not been working. This past week, when the Frenchschool system enforced a minute of silence for the victims of theCharlie Hebdo attack (generally under “Je Suis Charlie” signs),incidents were reported at some seventy French schools—mostlyones with large Muslim populations—where students resisted theobservance. While many French see this as siding with the terroristsover the victims, this is not necessarily so. The French state was, infact, forcing those students to pay homage to a publication that had,in their view, mocked their religion. If it is legitimate for CharlieHebdo to publish offensive cartoons, it must be legitimate to object,peacefully, to its doing so.

The broader debate about free expression—and about thediscrepancy in the treatment accorded Charlie Hebdo andDieudonné—also needs to consider the over-all context of media inFrance. The airwaves and traditional media are dominated by non-Muslim voices. Entire radio and TV programs debate daily themerits and demerits of Islam in France, without much effort toinclude the views of those in the Muslim community. Thecommentators on these shows may stop short of hate speech, butmany routinely engage in broad generalizations and negativestereotyping. In this context, the vigilant surveillance ofDieudonné’s nasty provocations appears extremely one-sided anddisproportionate, and gives him, sadly, far more importance than hedeserves.

With France still reeling from last week’s deadly attacks, it may taketime for a moderate response to prevail. But if the country wants toturn the attacks into a turning point for renewed national unity, itneeds to show that its Republican values of freedom are inclusive

and protect all its citizens—not only some of them. Last week’stragedy could drive a wedge between violent extremists and France’sMuslims, the vast majority of whom are peaceful, or it could deepenthe divide between France’s minorities and the rest of the country.

*Correction: This post has been amended to correct the wording ofDieudonné M’bala M’bala’s Facebook post and the dates when Francepassed its f irst “veil” law and its later ban on face-covering veils.

ALEXANDER STILLE

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