French Jewish Students Take Fight to Antisemitic ‘Comedian’ Dieudonné With Vocal Protest Outside Paris Show
by Ben Cohen
A group of French Jewish students vocally chastised fans of the antisemitic “comedian” Dieudonné M’bala M’bala as they arrived at one of his shows at a Paris theater on Wednesday night.
About thirty members of the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) and activist group SOS Racisme distributed leaflets with images of the Nazi death camps and the faces of Holocaust victims outside the theater in Chatillon, in the southwest of the French capital. Showgoers were repeatedly asked whether they “find it funny to attend a show by a Holocaust denier” as they filed into the theater.
Despite local police preventing the Jewish activists from entering the theater, they attempted to disrupt the performance by loudly broadcasting audio of the names of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis from a PA system parked in a van across the street. Once Dieudonné began his one-man act, the activists changed the soundtrack, pounding those inside the theater with a selection of heavy metal tracks played at full volume.
Ce soir, avec @SOS_Racisme nous sommes allé perturber le spectacle de Dieudonne à Châtillon. "Vous trouvez drôle d'aller voir un négationniste qui rit de la Shoah?" lançaient les militants aux spectateurs à leur arrivée https://t.co/Fd4VpKK1E4
— UEJF (@uejf) January 30, 2019
UEJF chair Sacha Ghozlan told the French news agency AFP, “Dieudonné spreads racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.”
Ghozlan continued: “He denies the existence of the gas chambers and feeds his audience with rage and anger.”
Since 2002, Dieudonné has been the subject of numerous legal proceedings for violating French laws against hate speech. In May 2016 he received a two-month suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros for hateful antisemitic comments uttered during one of his performances.