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The French courts are doing what the Minister of Justice Eric-Dupond Moretti asked them, through a circular of excessive severity which fell on October 10, 2023: The judges hit extremely hard, too hard, on the pro-Palestinians. The inflexions of the French executive after the move towards Israel alter nothing at the bottom of the matter, the heads which emerge from the doxa inflicted by President Emmanuel Macron from October 7, 2023 pay dearly. “Apologia for terrorism” is the heavy burden weighing on the Franco-Tunisian Mohamed Makni. He returned to court on February 20, for the third time and he encountered a big risk: 4 months suspended prison sentence, 800 euros fine, half of which is fixed, and one year of deprivation of eligibility rights. But the Deputy Mayor of Échirolles is the tree that hides the forest, the indictments are raining down…
If my name wasn’t Mohamed, I wouldn’t be here.”
The Grenoble Criminal Court had to decide on the dividing line – if there is one – between an act of resistance on the part of Hamas and a terrorist act committed by the Palestinian group on October 7. And the question, which provokes tensions, also impacts the French collective conscience. “They [Westerners] are quick to label as terrorist what, in our eyes, is an apparent act of resistance,” posted Makni on October 11, citing an extract from a publication by the former minister Ahmed Ounaïes.
All the Franco-Tunisian’s setbacks come from there, even if he took care to put a connection on his post to indicate the authorship of the thought. He is there because his laconic post was blown out of proportion and rebroadcast anonymously on a Grenoble right-wing forum. Although he issued a press release the next day to condemn the indiscriminate mass killing of October 7, nothing occurred, Zionist circles wanted their culprit, and they have him.
Makni is right to speak before his judges “If my name was not Mohamed, I would not be here”, he is right to point out the blatant “double standards of France”, assumed by the executive, but who listens to Franco-Tunisian? Who hears all the others caught in the net of Justice for the same reason? We will not notice the CGT Nord trade unionists parade at the bar, nor will we see the deputies of France Insoumise Danièle Obono and Thomas Portes and even less their leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Yet they said more or less the same thing as the Franco-Tunisian…
Even a famous Jewish lawyer denounces the relentlessness of Justice
The 73-year-old man will be notified of his legal fate this March 26. In the meantime, others are on the grill. “There are dozens of cases like Mr. Makni,” lamented his attorney Elsa Marcel. She lists four defendants whom she is defending, two for advocating terrorism and two others for provoking racial hatred, all charged following the October 7 attack and developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, a 14-year-old high school student was taken to court after her establishment was reported for a “silly joke”, according to her attorney, reports the newspaper Le Monde.
“The public making of remarks praising the attacks (…) by presenting them as legitimate resistance to Israel, or the public broadcasting of messages encouraging people to pass a favourable judgment on Hamas or Islamic Jihad (…) must accordingly be subject to prosecution”, had issued the minister’s circular, the least we can state is that it is applied to the letter of the text.
According to the Department of Justice, 626 procedures were begun as of January 30, including 278 after referrals to the National Center for Combating Online Hate. Prosecutions were launched against 80 individuals. This is what Mr Richard Malka, Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, said regarding this judicial inflation, renowned for his fight in favor of freedom of expression but likewise against anti-Semitism: “The positions taken, as stunning as they are, have nothing to do before the courts, except when it concerns calls for hatred of Jews or violence (…). The debate of ideas must be political, philosophical, ethical but not judicial.
“If we condemn people because they refuse to use the word “terrorism” for the attacks of October 7, will tomorrow we denounce historians, researchers, UN rapporteurs or even the Agence France-Presse, who decline to use this term (…)? What is at stake here is the safeguarding of the freedom of public debate,” proclaimed Me Elsa Marcel in her pleading for Makni. To meditate very deeply…
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