Free Speech and Hate Speech: French Ruling Roils the Waters

By Craig Roberts

The New York Times

June 27, 2005

PARIS, June 26 - According to William Goldnadel, the 4 euros he won in a recent court case here is a windfall for Jews in France. Others only see it adding to a deficit of free speech in Europe.

Three French intellectuals and the publisher of the nation's premier newspaper, Le Monde, were ordered by a French court in May to pay 1 euro each to Attorneys Without Borders, which Mr. Goldnadel leads, for defaming Jews in an op-ed article three years ago. The article, the court found, equated Jews with the state of Israel, whose policies the authors sharply criticized.

The four men were also told to pay one euro each to an Israeli-French association, and Le Monde was ordered to publish a notice of the court's decision in its pages in the coming months.

The case is one of many such complaints to land in European courts in recent years as a surge of emotional discourse - regarding Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks and Israel after the second Palestinian intifada - bumps against post-Nazi laws intended to guard against the fascist hate-mongering of the 1930's.

The far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has been taken to court on several occasions, accused of disparaging Muslims and discounting the Nazis' wartime atrocities. In 2002, the French author Michel Houellebecq was acquitted of inciting racial hatred in a 2001 novel that called Islam "the stupidest religion."

Most recently, an Italian judge ordered the journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial on charges that she defamed Islam in her 2004 book, "The Force of Reason." She wrote in the book that Islam "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

Some here say that Europe is struggling to adjust the boundaries of reasonable debate at the worst possible time.

"The more insecure Europe is about its identity, the more dangerous it is to cross those boundaries," said Dominique Moïsi, an international relations specialist. "Especially now, those boundaries are even more delicate because there is a danger of Europe falling prey to nationalistic and jingoistic reactions."

Most European countries have laws restricting hate speech that, even if they predate the mid-20th century rise of Nazism, have been reinforced by the shared history of the Holocaust. Even Britain, which protects freedom of speech in a spirit closer to that of the United States, is considering a law against "incitement of religious hatred" to go with a law against incitement of racial hatred.

Many free-speech cases have been set off since Sept. 11 by criticism of Islam amid concerns about Europe's growing conservative Muslim population. That does not mean that such laws curb speech uniformly across Europe. Enforcement varies according to the national mood, and penalties for infractions are usually low, leaving the field open to anyone willing to face the resulting opprobrium.

Theo van Gogh, for example, the Dutch filmmaker murdered in Amsterdam last Nov. 2 by an Islamist activist, was well known for his outrageous public comments about Muslims and Jews. One of his favorite epithets for conservative Muslims evoked bestiality with a goat, while in 1991 he wrote that "it smells like caramel today, they must be burning the diabetic Jews." He was fined the equivalent of a few hundred dollars for that.

The case of the article published in Le Monde arose amid a wave of scorn for Israeli policies that swept Europe after the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000. The mood soon fueled a surge in anti-Semitism in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe. "Death to Jews!" was shouted in Paris streets. Jewish children were attacked at schools; synagogues were burned. Emotions peaked during the Israeli Defense Force's reoccupation of Palestinian areas from March to May 2002. Political cartoons across Europe equated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with Hitler.

The article, published in June 2002, was nothing remarkable to American readers accustomed to raucous, sometimes racist public debate. But public criticism of racial or religious groups is forbidden in France, which is vigilant in policing public speech in pursuit of its vision of a homogenous, secular nation free of sectarian divisions.

The authors - one of whom is Jewish - condemned Mr. Sharon, accusing him of "oppressing and asphyxiating the Palestinian population."

PARIS, June 26 - According to William Goldnadel, the 4 euros he won in a recent court case here is a windfall for Jews in France. Others only see it adding to a deficit of free speech in Europe.

Three French intellectuals and the publisher of the nation's premier newspaper, Le Monde, were ordered by a French court in May to pay 1 euro each to Attorneys Without Borders, which Mr. Goldnadel leads, for defaming Jews in an op-ed article three years ago. The article, the court found, equated Jews with the state of Israel, whose policies the authors sharply criticized.

The four men were also told to pay one euro each to an Israeli-French association, and Le Monde was ordered to publish a notice of the court's decision in its pages in the coming months.

The case is one of many such complaints to land in European courts in recent years as a surge of emotional discourse - regarding Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks and Israel after the second Palestinian intifada - bumps against post-Nazi laws intended to guard against the fascist hate-mongering of the 1930's.

The far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has been taken to court on several occasions, accused of disparaging Muslims and discounting the Nazis' wartime atrocities. In 2002, the French author Michel Houellebecq was acquitted of inciting racial hatred in a 2001 novel that called Islam "the stupidest religion."

Most recently, an Italian judge ordered the journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial on charges that she defamed Islam in her 2004 book, "The Force of Reason." She wrote in the book that Islam "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

Some here say that Europe is struggling to adjust the boundaries of reasonable debate at the worst possible time.

"The more insecure Europe is about its identity, the more dangerous it is to cross those boundaries," said Dominique Moïsi, an international relations specialist. "Especially now, those boundaries are even more delicate because there is a danger of Europe falling prey to nationalistic and jingoistic reactions."

Most European countries have laws restricting hate speech that, even if they predate the mid-20th century rise of Nazism, have been reinforced by the shared history of the Holocaust. Even Britain, which protects freedom of speech in a spirit closer to that of the United States, is considering a law against "incitement of religious hatred" to go with a law against incitement of racial hatred.

Many free-speech cases have been set off since Sept. 11 by criticism of Islam amid concerns about Europe's growing conservative Muslim population. That does not mean that such laws curb speech uniformly across Europe. Enforcement varies according to the national mood, and penalties for infractions are usually low, leaving the field open to anyone willing to face the resulting opprobrium.

Theo van Gogh, for example, the Dutch filmmaker murdered in Amsterdam last Nov. 2 by an Islamist activist, was well known for his outrageous public comments about Muslims and Jews. One of his favorite epithets for conservative Muslims evoked bestiality with a goat, while in 1991 he wrote that "it smells like caramel today, they must be burning the diabetic Jews." He was fined the equivalent of a few hundred dollars for that.

The case of the article published in Le Monde arose amid a wave of scorn for Israeli policies that swept Europe after the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000. The mood soon fueled a surge in anti-Semitism in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe. "Death to Jews!" was shouted in Paris streets. Jewish children were attacked at schools; synagogues were burned. Emotions peaked during the Israeli Defense Force's reoccupation of Palestinian areas from March to May 2002. Political cartoons across Europe equated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with Hitler.

The article, published in June 2002, was nothing remarkable to American readers accustomed to raucous, sometimes racist public debate. But public criticism of racial or religious groups is forbidden in France, which is vigilant in policing public speech in pursuit of its vision of a homogenous, secular nation free of sectarian divisions.

The authors - one of whom is Jewish - condemned Mr. Sharon, accusing him of "oppressing and asphyxiating the Palestinian population."

One of the passages cited by the court read, "One finds it hard to imagine that a nation of fugitives descended from the people which has been persecuted the longest in the history of humanity, having been subjected to the worst humiliations and the deepest contempt, would be capable of transforming itself in two generations into a 'dominating and self-assured people' and, with the exception of an admirable minority, a contemptuous people taking satisfaction in humiliating others."

The phrase "dominating and self-assured people" was taken from a speech by Charles de Gaulle, who used it to describe Israelis in the aftermath of the 1967 war.

Mr. Goldnadel filed a complaint on behalf of his organization and the France-Israel Association, charging the authors with racial defamation.

At the subsequent trial, the judge found that any reasonable reader would understand the attack to be against the Sharon government and its supporters, rather than against all Jews. An appeals court, however, decided that three sentences in the 2,665-word article constituted racial defamation under a 1990 antiracism law.

Catherine Cohen, the lawyer for Le Monde, said the defendants had applied for the case to be heard by France's highest court of appeals, the Court of Cassation, which could uphold the verdict or annul it. Either way, the defendants must pay their token fines and Le Monde must publish the verdict in its pages.

An open letter in support of the defendants, signed by 100 French intellectuals and published in Le Monde last year, argued that criticizing the Israeli government "and even the majority of Israelis who support it," is far from a condemnation of all Jews. It warned that the case "shows the serious threat, which often takes the form of intimidation, that is looming over freedom of expression in France."

But Mr. Goldnadel sees the case as part of a larger shift in what is acceptable in public discourse that began with the start of the second intifada. "Since the intifada, the media has suddenly discovered freedom of expression," he said. "When speaking of Israel or Zionism they say anything they want to now."

This is not the first case Mr. Goldnadel has brought against Le Monde: in 1999 he sued the newspaper, accusing it of defaming Serbs by equating them with the policies of Slobodan Milosevic. He lost at trial and won on appeal, but lost in the Court of Cassation.

In June 2001, Mr. Goldnadel's group brought charges against Daniel Mermet, a journalist at Radio France, for broadcasting comments from listeners who blamed Jews in general for Israeli policies, complaining that they had exploited the sympathy won during World War II. Mr. Goldnadel lost in the trial and in the appeal.

He said he hoped the appeals court decision in the latest case represented an effort to address the sharp rise in anti-Semitism that the government and judiciary have been accused of ignoring.

"No one denies now that there has been a rise in anti-Semitism tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/international/europe/27france.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/international/europe/27france.html?pagewanted=2