Dieudonné M'bala M'bala

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Dieudonné

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala (born 1966), generally known simply as Dieudonné, is a controversial French comedian who is accused by several commentators of being antisemitic.

Dieudonné was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris. His mother was from Brittany and his father was an African from Cameroon.^[1]^[2] He started his career performing with French Jewish comedian Elie Semoun before going solo in 1997. His first shows (such as Patrick's Divorce) gained him a considerable success, but his controversial remarks and sketches in which he disparaged all monotheistic religions made him a growing number of enemies. In the introduction to a March 2006 interview, The Independent called him a "French Louis Farrakhan... obsessed with Jews".^[3]

He has been the subject of legal proceedings for "apologie d'actes de terrorisme" (justifying terrorist acts) after 9/11. Thus, in the French monthly L'Écho des savanes, he referred to Osama bin Laden as the "most important personality in contemporary history, because he stands alone against the biggest power in the world. Obviously, it calls for respect. I prefer bin Laden's charisma to that of George Bush".

He has also been the object of attention for alleged anti-Jewish hate speech. He called the observance of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz "memorial pornography", and referred to the French Jewish organization CRIF as "an anti-constitutional cult" and "a mafia that controls everything in France". He asserted that they gathered French leaders together once a year to lay out a "road map or agenda for the year ahead".^[3]

In December 2003, he made an appearance on live television dressed as a Haredi Jew and urged Muslims to convert to the "American-Israeli axis of good" if they wanted a place in this society. Dieudonné finished the show by giving the traditional Nazi salute and exclaiming "Isra-Heil!". He was accused of violating French laws against incitation to racial or religious hatred, but in 2004, a Paris court ruled that he did not violate the law.

Dieudonné's defenders point out that the result of the various legal proceedings is that there has been no final conviction on any criminal charges, after appeals. His penchant for attracting controversy has made many TV channels and venues reluctant to book him.

After his show on TV, some people intervened during one of his one man shows in Lyon (in La Bourse du Travail) on February 5, 2004; they entered chanting "Dieudonné, fucking nigger, the Jewish will kill you" and attacking a 13-year-old girl with a home-made bomb ^[1].

In December 2005, he was in the news for losing a lawsuit to prevent an unflattering biography from being reprinted,^[2] and for announcing his candidacy for the 2007 presidential elections. The webpage for his official presidential candidacy regularly features articles by Holocaust-denier Serge Thion (under the transparent pseudonym "Serge Noith"). He abandoned his candidacy in October 2006.

[edit] Other Incidents

On 2 March 2005, in Martinique, four Israelis attacked him after referring to the TV show^[3].
On February 11, 2006, he participated in the Parisian "march of angry Muslims" against the Muhammad cartoons.
On March 10, 2006, a Paris court sentenced him to a €5,000 fine for having alleged in an interview (published in February 2004) that "those Jews that criticise me are all former slave-merchants who now control the media and the banks".^[4]
In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois ^[5].
On June 14, 2006, he was sentenced to a total of 4,500 € fine (3,000 + 1,500) for libel, having accused a prominent Jewish TV-show host of "actively financing the Israeli army".^[6]
In November 2006 he appeared at a political event for Jean-Marie Le Pen's far-right party^[7]. He first endorsed José Bové and then Socialist Party politician Ségolène Royal for the second turn ^[4].