Dieudonne gives Ahmadinejad gold ‘quenelle’ statue

Iranian ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Dieudonne M’bala M’bala a “great artist” during a meeting in Tehran with the French comic who is a repeat inciter of hate against Jews.

Dieudonne visited the Islamic Republic last week, the news site fararu.com reported, and presented Ahmadinejad with a golden statue of a man performing the quenelle — a gesture reminiscent of the Nazi salute that Dieudonne is promoting as a sign of discontent with the establishment but that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called a gesture of “anti-Semitic hate.”

Dieudonne calls the statue a “golden quenelle” and has presented a number of them to personalities he defines as anti-Zionist.

Ahmadinejad is a noted Holocaust denier who during his presidency expressed his wish that Israel would disappear.

What the hell…RT@DrAhmadinejad: Visiting an old friend, a great artist. #Dieudonne #all4Palestine pic.twitter.com/Mu5aMyyeke

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories

Newsletter email address Get it

By signing up, you agree to the terms

— Sasan Aghlani (@Aghlani) February 27, 2015

On his official Twitter account, Ahmadinejad wrote about the encounter: “Visiting an old friend, a great artist. #Dieudonne #all4Palestine.”

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flashes the victory sign as he attends the 12th summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil)

During his eight years in office through 2013, Ahmadinejad ran competitions of cartoons on the Holocaust, soliciting drawings that suggested the genocide never happened or is happening to the Palestinians.

Dieudonne has more than 10 convictions for inciting hatred against the Jews, including through ridiculing the Holocaust and suggesting it is fabricated.

Illustrative photo of anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonne performing the anti-Semitic quenelle gesture (screen capture: YouTube)

Dieudonne, whose shows are regularly banned in France and who is facing accusations of tax evasion in addition to ongoing probes into anti-Semitic speech, is the inventor of the word “shaonanas.”

A mash up of the Hebrew word for the Holocaust and French for pineapple, it is widely understood to be a code word suggesting the Holocaust never happened without violating France’s laws against denying it.