After the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, the French government insisted until it was bleu in the face that it would defend free speech against all forms of barbarism. And now? Per the New York Times:
PARIS — The provocative French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was found guilty on Wednesday of condoning terrorism after a Facebook message he posted in January suggested sympathy with one of the gunmen in the attacks that killed 17 people in Paris.
The court in Paris gave him a suspended two-month jail sentence.
Mr. M’bala M’bala was convicted under a new law enacted in November meant to rein in speech supporting terrorism. The law was aggressively enforced by the French authorities in the wake of the January attacks.
And what did Dieudonné say?
Just days after the attacks that killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, one municipal police officer south of Paris, and four people at a kosher supermarket, Mr. M’bala M’bala wrote on his Facebook page that he felt like “Charlie Coulibaly.”
The message, which blended the popular “I am Charlie” slogan with the name of the gunman at the supermarket, Amedy Coulibaly, was posted on a day when millions had rallied around France to condemn the attacks.
Ah, so he expressed a sentiment that was at odds with the values of the majority and, in consequence, he was punished by the state. Suffice it to say that this is the exact opposite of “protecting free speech.” Rather, this is majoritarian tyranny; this is the strong crushing the weak; this is the government contriving to use its bayonets to go after those who are out of step with the prevailing national sentiment.
Now, do I like what Dieudonné said? No, I think it was bloody. Do I wish he thought differently? Sure. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? If I did like what he said — if it were popular — it wouldn’t need defending. We judge our liberty not by how free the masses are to agree with one another, but by how we treat the dissenters. Dieudonné dissented. Dieudonné was persecuted for it.
Worse, perhaps, by sticking the man in jail the French government has given off the impression that there is a pernicious double standard at play: namely, that when a Muslim is upset by free expression he has to suck it up — “Je Suis Charlie” and all that — but when Jews are upset by verbal provocations the police will swoop in and take care of the speaker. This generally false idea — that Jews get special treatment under the law in France — is widely entertained within French Muslim circles. The government in Paris just gave it some succor.
As it happens, this is not the first time that Dieudonné has been targeted:
The “Charlie Coulibaly” post was one of many controversial statements and gestures the French comedian has made over the years. While he has been convicted and fined dozens of times in the past for anti-Semitic statements or slander, this was the first time he faced a potential jail sentence.
Mr. M’bala M’bala will face sentencing in another case on Thursday. In that one, he is accused of inciting racial hatred through comments he made in 2013 lamenting that a prominent Jewish journalist did not die in “the gas chambers.”
Immediately after the shootings, France’s President Hollande claimed vigorously that he was a friend of liberty:
“There are tensions abroad where people don’t understand our attachment to the freedom of speech,” Hollande said. “We’ve seen the protests, and I would say that in France all beliefs are respected.”
No, they’re not.