French teacher convicted of antisemitism over COVID protest sign
Educator, 34, was seen at an anti-vaccine and anti-health pass demonstration holding a sign with names of Jewish officials, alongside an antisemitic slogan
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METZ, France — A teacher in eastern France received a suspended jail sentence Wednesday for inciting racial hatred after brandishing an antisemitic sign at a demonstration over the government’s COVID-19 health pass.
Cassandre Fristot, 34, was photographed at the demonstration in the city of Metz on August 7 holding a sign scrawled with the surnames of several well-known figures from politics, business, and the media labeled “traitors!!!”
Many of those cited had Jewish or Jewish-sounding names such as US financier George Soros, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and former French health minister Agnes Buzyn.
The sign, which also cited President Emmanuel Macron and current Health Minister Olivier Veran, also bore the question “but who?” — a hashtag used by conspiracy theorists to perpetuate the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media.
Fristot, a former local councilor with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front (now called the National Rally), was suspended from her job as a German teacher in the wake of the picture.
She denied it was antisemitic.
Sześć miesięcy więzienia w zawieszeniu dla francuskiej nauczycielki Cassandre Fristot za nazwanie Sorosa, Macrona i Rotschildów zdrajcami. Reszta nazwisk to https://t.co/vx0Q8qYhPu. francuscy politycy żydowskiego pochodzenia, Włoch Drahi i Schwab (Davos). https://t.co/AK1hcJsLtc pic.twitter.com/zFZJzHjZDc
— Stanislas Balcerac (@sbalcerac) October 20, 2021
The six-month suspended sentence handed down by a court in Metz was stiffer than the three-month suspended sentence state prosecutors had requested.
Fristot was also ordered to pay between one euro and 300 euros ($350) in damages to eight anti-racism groups that joined the case as plaintiffs.
She was not in court for the ruling.
Annie Levi-Cyferman, a lawyer for France’s Human Rights League, hailed the judgment as “a victory for everything that constitutes incitement to hatred” and praised the court for not “being fooled” by the sign’s “hidden” message.
The sign, which was widely shared on social media, caused an outcry in the political class and among anti-racism campaigners.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin called it “despicable” and vowed Fristot would be punished.
“Anti-Semitism is a crime, not an opinion,” he tweeted in August.
Over the summer tens of thousands of French people demonstrated against the introduction of a pass requiring people to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID, tested negative for the virus, or already had the disease in order to gain entry to bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and other facilities.
In the past two months, however, the protest movement has begun to run out of steam as more people who had resisted getting vaccinated relent and agree to receive COVID jabs.
The Times of Israel Community.