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France’s Zemmour faces lawsuit over denial of homophobic Nazi crimes

Far-right French presidential candidate, Éric Zemmour, has found himself in hot water for playing down atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against gay people in France during WW2.

Published: 23 March 2022 17:20 CET

Far-right French presidential candidate, Éric Zemmour, has caused outrage once again. (Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP)

French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour is being targeted with legal action by gay rights groups, who say he denied that homosexuals were rounded up and deported during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.

Six gay rights associations told AFP on Wednesday that their criminal complaint for “denial of crimes against humanity” stemmed from Zemmour’s campaign manifesto, “France has not said its final word,” published in September.

In it, Zemmour agreed with another politician who claimed that deportations of homosexuals to concentration camps were a “legend”.

Zemmour “distorted history to support his homophobic positions,” the associations alleged in their complaint.

People close to the candidate retorted that “it is not Zemmour’s words that are cited in the book,” and called the legal move a smear attempt ahead of the first round of voting in the presidential election on April 10.

“Pro-LGBT” groups feared the candidate’s stance against gay “propaganda in our schools,” his team added.

Meanwhile Zemmour’s lawyer Olivier Pardo said he had not yet seen the legal complaint.

Seen by AFP, the complaint from the gay rights groups says that “deportation of homosexuals during World War II is an established historical fact” acknowledged by past French leaders including President Jacques Chirac and confirmed by recent scholarship.

“In France, at least 500 men accused of homosexuality were arrested, of whom at least 200 were deported during the German occupation,” they said.

‘Remigration’

Zemmour, 63, has for his part cited past declarations from Jewish associations that deported homosexuals were actually targeted as members of other persecuted categories, like Jews or members of the anti-Nazi resistance.

The candidate has in the past escaped conviction for another complaint of denying crimes against humanity, after he said that Marshal Petain, head of the Nazi vassal state based in Vichy during World War II, had “saved” French Jews.

An appeals court is set to render a new judgement in that case after the presidential vote.

Also Wednesday, Zemmour presented an outline of his budget plans if he were elected, claiming that he could find 20 billion euros ($22 billion) of savings by removing state aid to foreigners from outside the EU.

But the authority responsible for such payouts has said that the total for Europeans and non-Europeans combined was less than half the figure in 2019.

Zemmour’s spending priorities would include defence, internal security, the legal system and health — though his calculations did not include plans announced this week for a “remigration ministry” that he vowed would deport a million people within five years.

The idea of “remigration” is borrowed from white nationalist thinking, in line with Zemmour’s belief in the conspiracy theory of a “great replacement” of white Europeans by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.