Far-right candidate Éric Zemmour faces yet another lawsuit in the run-up to France's presidential election, this time filed by gay rights groups who say he denied that homosexuals were rounded up and deported during the country's wartime Nazi occupation.
Six gay rights associations told AFP on Wednesday that their criminal complaint for "denial of crimes against humanity" stemmed from Zemmour's latest book, "France has not said its final word", published in September.
Zemmour, a writer and talk show pundit known for his polarising attacks on Muslims and immigrants, is currently polling in fourth position, at around 11 percent, ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election on April 10.
In his book, the far-right candidate agreed with another politician who argued that deportations of homosexuals to concentration camps were a "myth". Such a claim "distorts history to support [Zemmour's] homophobic positions", the associations alleged in their complaint.
The candidate's entourage retorted that "it is not Zemmour's words that are cited in the book". They called the legal move a smear attempt ahead of the first round of voting in the presidential election on April 10.
Gay-rights groups feared the candidate's stance against "propaganda in our schools", Zemmour's team added, referring to the former pundit's claims that children are exposed to "anti-racist and pro-LGBT propaganda" in French schools.
'An established historical fact'
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 former 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.
Zemmour has previously 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 63-year-old already has two convictions for hate speech and is appealing a third. He has also been found guilty of copyright infringement over his unauthorised use of film clips and newsreels in a video launching his run for the Élysée Palace.
The candidate has in the past escaped conviction for another complaint of denying crimes against humanity, after he said that Marshal Pétain, 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.
'Remigration'
Also on Wednesday, Zemmour presented an outline of his budget plans if he were elected, claiming that he could find €20 billion ($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.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
