Renaud Camus could be prosecuted over ‘Condoms for Africa’ tweet

The complaint was over a tweet he posted last week which translates as follows: “A box of condoms offered in Africa, that’s three fewer people drowned in the Mediterranean, a hundred thousand euros in savings for the French benefits system, two prison cells freed up and three centimetres of ice shelf preserved.”

Une boîte de préservatifs offerte en Afrique c’est trois noyés en moins en Méditerranée, cent mille euros d’économie pour la Caf, deux cellules de prisons libérées et trois centimètres de banquise préservée.

— Renaud Camus (@RenaudCamus) April 18, 2019

The limits of free speech in France have largely been determined by various “anti-racism” organisations. In this case, the organisation filing the complaint is LICRA (International League Against Racism and Antisemitism).

The organisation started as the “League Against Pogroms”, with its mission being to secure the acquittal of a suspect who had murdered a visiting Ukrainian dignitary, with the claim that he had been involved in pogroms.

LICRA has announced that it has seized justice following the tweet posted by Camus. The tweet was immediately condemned by several anti-racist associations and some usual Internet users, but it has not been removed from Twitter.

Theorist of the “Great Replacement”, Camus announced at the beginning of April his intention to form a list for the European elections together with Karim Ouchikh, president of the identity micro-party Siel (Sovereignty, identities and freedoms).

Renaud Camus has already dealt with justice in the past. In 2015, he was sentenced on appeal to a fine of 4 000 euros for provoking “hatred or violence” against the Muslim population for comments made in 2010.

He was also sentenced to pay 500 euros in damages and interest to the Mrap (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples).

“As for Camus, we prefer Albert,” tweeted LICRA on Tuesday. The court has announced that it wants to take legal action in the wake of the “despicable remarks”.

The polemical author and former 1996 prize winner of the French Academy supported Marine Le Pen during the last French presidential election.

Yann Moix, a French author, film director and television presenter was however sentenced on appeal last month for defaming Camus, whom he had described as “somewhat anti-Semitic”.

The Paris court of appeal sentenced Moix to pay damages of 1000 euros to Renaud Camus, as well as paying 2 000 euros in court fees. It found that “the imputation of antisemitism was sufficiently precise” and that the evidence, which could have been “more complete”, was “sufficient as it stands”.

Camus, on June 3, 2017, on France 2, participated in a debate that had focused on the great replacement by immigration. Camus, 71, responded to Yann Moix’s claims with a defamation charge after Moix’s accusations of anti-Semitism, not racism, claiming 30 000 euros in damages.

“Renaud Camus is a writer a little bit misanthropic, anti-Semitic enough,” said Yann Moix. The writer Charles Consigny , invited on the set, cut him off: “He is not an anti-Semite”. But Yann Moix insisted.

At the hearing, Camus explained that he considered these remarks as a resurgence of the “Camus affair” which, in 2000, had led to the withdrawal of the sale of one of his books, “La campagne de France”, after several personalities had denounced his “anti-Semitism”.

“Even if anti-Semitism is one of the forms of” racism “considered in a general sense, this single criminal conviction for a statement made in 2010, can not characterize the antisemitism imputed to the civil party,” the judge noted.