French writer faces two years behind bars for Yellow Vest rap song

Alain Bonnet, his real name, will also pay a fine of 45 000 euros. He was prosecuted for provoking racial hatred and aggravated public insult.

The Criminal Court of Bobigny sentenced the writer to two years imprisonment including six months suspended with probation for a period of three years. The sentence consists of three measures: 210 hours of community service, either for a full-time one and a half months of hard labor, removal of the incriminated publication under penalty of 1 000 euros per day of delay and compensation for “victims”.

In a statement published on September 19, Alain Soral’s lawyer, Damien Viguier, detailed the terms of the conviction.

The total could exceed the 171 000 euros: 45 000 euros fine, publication of the judgment in the newspaper Le Monde for 15 days (estimating at 4 000 euros each publication, because the price of the character, spaces included, is astronomical) and especially 10 000 euros to each civil party whose legal fees will be covered by Soral to up to 1 000 euros (there were six civil parties, including Licra, Uejf, SOS Racism, J’accuse, Mrap and Ldh).

The writer is condemned only because as founder and president of the association Equality & Reconciliation he is held to be the director of the publication of the eponymous site, responsible for the offending publications.

It was about a rap song called Yellow Vests in which nothing appeared to be objectionable at first said his lawyer. But the associations that had launched the lawsuits against Soral claimed to have decoded the words and images.

Published on Soral’s website Equality and Reconciliation, the video in which a sign containing the name of Rothschild was thrown at traffic light, was shown.

A fire at a roundabout manned by Yellow Vests became “a pyre” and the word “parasite” was translated as the will to total extermination when photos of Rothshild, Jacques Attali, Patrick Drahi and Bernard Henri Levi were thrown into the fire.

Thus fifteen seconds of images on a clip of four minutes and thirty-two seconds convinced the magistrates of Bobigny of its profoundly antisemitic nature.

On April 15, the essayist, who had already been condemned many times, was sentenced to one year for denial in another case. The Paris Criminal Court then ordered an arrest warrant against him, which the prosecution had refused to execute, considering that it had no legal basis.

On June 5 in Paris, a year in prison was required against him for having qualified the Pantheon as “kosher waste” in a video posted in July 2018 on his website.