Sun 30 August 2020:
A French far-right magazine’s drawing of Black lawmaker Danielle Obono as a slave with chains around her neck has triggered an uproar, prompting anti-racism campaigners to consider legal moves to counter rising hate speech in the country.
French President Emmanuel Macron led nationwide outrage Saturday after the ultra-conservative magazine portrayed a black lawmaker as a slave.
Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted on Saturday that the drawing deserves “unambiguous condemnation”, while President Emmanuel Macron called Obono and “expressed his clear condemnation of any form of racism”, according to his office.
J’ai lu le dernier roman fiction de l’été de @Valeurs dont le concept est de plonger des personnalités contemporaines dans le passé. @Deputee_Obono se retrouve confrontée à la réalité de l’esclavage en Afrique au 18ème siècle, elle qui défend des thèses indigénistes. A lire pic.twitter.com/2vyczE8Npt
— Nadine Morano (@nadine__morano) August 29, 2020
The head of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, wrote on Twitter: “At her side in the fight against racism and for the respect due to all elected representatives of the republic.”
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti, for his part, said, “One is free to write a putrid novel within the limits fixed by the law. One is free to hate it. I hate it.”
“I share the indignation of lawmaker Obono,” he said.
“One is free to write a putrid novel within the limits fixed by the law. One is free to hate it. I hate it,” said Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.
In a Twitter post, Obono blasted the illustration in the latest issue of the Valeurs Actuelles publication as “racist s***” and described the country’s extreme right as “odious, stupid and cruel”.
Il paraît ‘Qu’on-Peut-Pu-Rien-Dire’ #BienPensance. Heureusement on peut encore écrire de la merde raciste dans un torchon illustrée par les images d’une députée française noire africaine repeinte en esclave…
L’extrême-droite, odieuse, bête et cruelle. Bref, égale à elle-même. pic.twitter.com/EupKSXZ207— Députée Obono (@Deputee_Obono) August 28, 2020
The magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, which caters to readers on the right and far right, showed Obono in chains with an iron collar on her neck to illustrate a seven-page imaginary story.
Anti-racism activists said the publication reflected a creeping acceptance of extremist views, fuelled by social media.
France saw multiple protests in June and July against racial injustice and police brutality inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd’s police killing at the knee of a white policeman in the United States.
Macron, a centrist who raised eyebrows when he gave an interview to Valeurs Actuelles last year, has pledged to root out racism. But he also insisted that France will not take down statues of figures linked to the colonial era or the slave trade, as has happened in other countries in recent months.
