Ban on Dieudonné’s Controversial Show Due to Risks of Public Order Disturbances

Laurent Nuñez considered that the risks of serious disturbances to public order were too great to maintain the show on September 14, in view of the comedian’s repeated anti-Semitic remarks.

Already refused in several cities, the show of the controversial humorist Dieudonné will not take place on September 14 at the Zénith de Paris, the prefect of police having decided to ban it because of “risks of serious disturbances to public order. “in view of his repeated anti-Semitic remarks.

This ban is in addition to those taken during the summer in Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier or Toulouse, where the comedian multi-convicted for racial insults and incitement to hatred was to present his new show “La Cage aux fous “, with the singer antivax Francis Lalanne.

“Risks of public order disturbances”

At the beginning of August, the prefect of police Laurent Nuñez had warned Dieudonné of this possibility of prohibition due in particular to “risks of serious disturbances to public order”, which he reiterated in the decree motivating his decision.

In this letter, the prefect mentioned “attacks on human dignity” in the content of the show. Several exchanges then took place between the police headquarters and the polemicist’s lawyer, in particular on the communication of the script for the show.

In his ban, Laurent Nuñez noted that it was “public knowledge that the content of the previous shows” by Dieudonné “apologized the discriminations, persecutions and exterminations perpetrated during the Second World War” .

He also considered that the “elements put forward by the lawyer” of the controversial comedian were “not likely to prevent the making of remarks undermining human dignity during the show and did not contribute ) thus not sufficient guarantees on the absence of disturbances to public order”.

Laurent Nuñez also pointed out that in an article by Rivarol (a far-right press organ) dated August 29, Dieudonné had stigmatized “the Jewish lobby” by claiming to want to “fight this hateful and racist lobby”.

The prefect of police also noted that this show was to take place the day before the celebration by the Jewish community of Rosh Hashanah, the new year in the Hebrew calendar, and “near a synagogue”.

Dieudonné and Francis Lalanne have already tried to play “La Cage aux fous” at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris on April 7. From the end of April, the Zénith de Paris had alerted the public authorities, recalling that a ban was up to “only the competent authorities”.

A regular in the courtrooms

Former accomplice of Elie Semoun, former darling of television sets, considered for a time as one of the best comedians of his generation, Dieudonné, 57, fell into controversy and legal convictions twenty years ago.

Born in 1966 in Hauts-de-Seine to a Cameroonian father who is a chartered accountant and a Breton sociologist mother, he has dual French and Cameroonian nationality. He met Elie Semoun in high school and started writing sketches between two jobs. In the 90s, the duo enjoyed rapid success.

But in 2003, on television, on the set of Marc-Olivier Fogiel, the comedian switches to another dimension by concluding with a Nazi salute a failed sketch for which he had disguised himself as an extremist Jew.

This release provokes a storm of reactions and complaints. He continues in this way and becomes a regular in the courts.

Dieudonné lost many friends there but also gained friendships, such as Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson (whom he then had his audience applaud on stage), conspiracy theorist Thierry Meyssan, far-right essayist Alain Soral, or even Jean-Marie Le Pen, the godfather of his daughter Plume.

The polemicist, expelled in 2017 from his Parisian theater the Théâtre de la Main d’or, has become persona non grata and now performs, most of the time, in a traveling bus, a space poor in decorations, far from a stage. under spotlights.

His penultimate show, “Sous bracelet”, refers to his placement under an electronic bracelet after his conviction at the end of May 2021 for tax evasion and abuse of corporate assets. He was found guilty of embezzling more than a million euros in unaccounted receipts from his shows.

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