France / Cour de cassation / N°21-86.068 / ECLI:FR:CCASS:2023:CR00132

Country

France

Title

France / Cour de cassation / N°21-86.068 / ECLI:FR:CCASS:2023:CR00132

View full case

Year

2023

Decision/ruling/judgment date

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Incident(s) concerned/related

Hate speech: Public incitement to violence or hatred

Related Bias motivation

Religion

Groups affected

Muslims

Court/Body type

National Court

Court/Body

Cour de cassation

Key facts of the case

The case related to the conviction of an individual for public insults and incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or group of people on the grounds of their origin or their membership or non-membership of a particular ethnic group, nation, race or religion. The individual involved had, during a speech at a public meeting, made public remarks to a group of people, on the grounds of their origin or their membership of a particular ethnic group, nation, race or religion, which qualified as public insults, such as: "Africa, which was an empty land of 100 million inhabitants in 1900, will be a full land of 2 billion or more by 2050. Europe, which was then a land of 400 million people, four times as many, has only grown to 500 million. One for four, the ratio has been exactly reversed. At the time, our continent's demographic dynamism enabled white people to colonise the world. They exterminated Indians and aborigines, and enslaved Africans. Today, we're experiencing a demographic inversion, which is leading to a reversal of migratory flows, which is leading to a reversal of colonisation. I'll let you guess who their Indians and slaves will be (...). There's a continuity between the rapes, robberies, trafficking and attacks of 2015, not to mention the countless knife attacks in the streets of France. It's the same people who commit these crimes, who move seamlessly from one to another to punish the "kouffars", the infidels. It's jihad everywhere and for everyone and by everyone."

Main reasoning/argumentation

The Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation) noted that the Court of Appeal (Cour d'appel) had examined each of the incriminated passages in isolation, to conclude that none of them targeted a group of people as a whole, but only a fraction thereof", while it had to carry out an overall analysis which demonstrated, as the first judges had rightly pointed out, that "the wording of the incriminated passages of this written and prepared speech does not stigmatise Islamists or Salafists, but Muslims as a whole, presented as invaders, with a lexical field of war and colonisation". The Court of Appeal (Cour d'appel) considered "that the first passage in question targeted immigrants of the Muslim faith from Africa; that the second passage referred to immigrants of the Muslim faith; that the third, fourth and fifth passages were aimed at immigrants of the Muslim faith, who are accused of wanting to come to France in order to continue to live as they did at home and place the indigenous people under the domination of Islamic mores; that the sixth passage did not concern Muslims as a whole, but only a section thereof who displayed their community affiliation by wearing a veil for women or a djellaba for men". It concluded that none of the comments were aimed at Muslims as a whole, but only at a fraction of these groups. Nevertheless, it should have understood these words as a whole and to consider that the remarks qualified as provocations and insults falling under Articles 24, paragraph 7, and 33, paragraph 3, of the law of 29 July 1881 on freedom of the press.

Is the case related to the application of the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, the Racial Equality Directive?

Key issues (concepts, interpretations) clarified by the case

The question was whether the Court of Appeal's (Cour d'appel) ruling was vitiated by an error of law in that it quashed the plaintiff's conviction for discrimination and incitement to hatred or violence, on the grounds that their remarks did not related to Muslims as a whole, but a "fraction" of them.

Results (sanctions, outcome) and key consequences or implications of the case

The French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) overturned the Court of Appeal's (Cour d'appel) decision and referred the case to the Paris Court of Appeal, which may or may not uphold the individual's conviction (€10,000 fine and the distribution and publication of a legal notice as additional penalties and a ruling on civil interests).

Key quotation in original language and its unofficial translation into English with reference details

"20. En premier lieu, peu important que le ministère public et les parties civiles lui aient soumis des analyses différentes des propos poursuivis, il lui appartenait de déterminer si ceux-ci visaient un groupe protégé au sens des dispositions susvisées. 21. En deuxième lieu, elle devait, pour ce faire, procéder à une analyse globale des propos poursuivis, éclairés par tous les éléments extrinsèques qu'il lui appartenait de relever. 22. Enfin, les propos litigieux désignent les immigrés de confession musulmane venant d'Afrique, soit un groupe de personnes déterminé tant par leur origine que par leur religion, entrant dans les prévisions de la loi." "20. Firstly, regardless of the fact that the public prosecutor and the civil parties had submitted different analyses of the statements in question, it was up to the court to determine whether they were aimed at a protected group within the meaning of the aforementioned provisions. 21. Secondly, in order to do so, it had to carry out an overall analysis of the statements made, taking into account all the extrinsic facts that it had to identify. 22. Lastly, the disputed remarks referred to immigrants of the Muslim faith from Africa, i.e. a group of people determined both by their origin and their religion, falling within the scope of the law."

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