French Mayors Follow Wiesenthal Request in Closing Antisemitic Shows

August 24, 2023

Paris - The Wiesenthal Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, has repeatedly alerted national and local authorities on the threats posed by pseudo comedian turned arch-antisemitic polemist, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala. He is mostly known for his “quenelle” (an upside-down Hitler salute), his neo-Nazi associates and his complicity with the Iran regime.
 
This week, several Mayors of French towns - including Toulouse, Lyon and Grenoble - have stepped up to ban Dieudonné’s summer tour shows, considered as unwelcome “provocations” and “potential incitement to Jew-hatred.”
 
Samuels thanked the Mayors of these municipalities in following our request. In these cities, Islamists have been active and even deadly, as in the case of Toulouse.
 
The latter has not only seen the horrific murder by a Jihadi lone-wolf of Jewish infants and a teacher, at the Otzar Hatorah school, but is also the base for the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV – ‘Association Palestine Will Vanquish’), which has ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist group combining Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology.
 
The CPV is known for misappropriating public transport advertisement boards to display antisemitic posters, campaigning for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions targeting Israel) and organizing conferences glorifying terrorists. It remains the object of a “dissolution decree”, on the grounds that it “calls for hatred, violence and discrimination... supports and legitimizes terrorism and a virulent antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.”
 
“We hope that this will be the occasion to expand the list of French cities that adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) Definition of Antisemitism,” concluded Samuels.

For further information contact Dr. Shimon Samuels at csweurope@gmail.com, join the Center on Facebook, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).