The issue is not easy, sure. The small fine is a particular case, not a general law being broadly applied. I am not sure there are any signs of such a tendency towards that either. There are plenty of people making such statements on a regular basis, and they are not, nor will they be, fined for it.

The point being, that Dieudonne is a popular public figure who uses his status and visibility to repeatedly make statements against Jews. And this is one slap on the wrist specifically connected with this particular act.

I don’t think the issue is simple, but I don’t think it represents “an affront to democratic principles.” The limits of free speech is a very old issue. I am not sure there is a golden rule for its application. But rather needs to be negotiated in the context.

It is true that the fine on Dieudonne “allows people like D to puff themselves up as free-speech martyrs,” but it’s also true that, in the absence of such a fine, they find other ways to “prove” their “persecution by the Jews.”

You also wrote: “It’s amazing that this obvious point has yet to be grasped in Europe.” I wonder if you think this is any different than the debate over hate speech in the U.S., which is the country I believe you’re comparing it to?

Walter, this is France where speech has already been criminalized. We are not talking about the US.

Here is a short list of activities in which he has been involved:

“On 2 March 2005, in Martinique, four Israelis attacked him after referring to the television show[3].

On February 11, 2006, he participated in the Parisian “march of angry Muslims” against the Muhammad cartoons.

On March 10, 2006, a Paris court sentenced him to a €5,000 fine for having alleged in an interview (published in February 2004) that “those Jews that criticise me are all former slave-merchants who now control the media and the banks”.[4]

In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois [5].

On June 14, 2006, he was sentenced to a total of 4,500 € fine (3,000 + 1,500) for libel, having accused a prominent Jewish TV-show host of “actively financing the Israeli army”.[6]

In November 2006 he appeared at a political event for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right party[7]. He first endorsed José Bové and then Socialist Party politician Ségolène Royal for the second turn [4].”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M‘bala_M’bala

Doesn’t seem like he respects free speech neither, does it.

“In December 2005, he was in the news for losing a lawsuit to prevent an unflattering biography from being reprinted,[2]”

The guy is an obsessed and mixed up Jew hater.

He is one of the people who helped create a climate of anti-Jewish violence which led to the death of at least one Jew.

Criminalizing speech. Wrong direction. Bad idea.

One wonders what motivates him. Was it the influence of the left in France or the fact that by attacking Jews he would get noticed?

Methinks that the fine is peanuts for someone like him.

He should have been fined eleven million dollars and not a measly 11 thousand.