This June 21, 2024, the Montargis public prosecutor's office announces that it has taken action following the broadcast of an episode of the flagship program “Envoyé Spécial”, as part of the early legislative elections of June 30 and July 7. The extract in question is the one which shows a couple of supporters of the National Rally covering their neighbor with racist insults: Divine Kinekela, a black caregiver. The couple allegedly threw insults at him like “bonobo” or “we’re at home, go to the doghouse” followed by monkey noises
In a press release, the public prosecutor Jean-Cédric Graux justifies his decision: “The words and behaviors observed could be criminalized as public and non-public insults of a racial nature, public provocation to discrimination and violence without incapacity of a racial nature, the Montargis public prosecutor's office took up these facts” The latter also specifies that the maximum penalty incurred is three years' imprisonment and 45 euros
5 comments
… I know this is a weird thing for me to get fixated on but the prison time and fine seem reversed in what severity is appropriate. 3 years is enough time to get sucked into a racist gang and radicalized, feeding into delusions that marginalized groups hold disproportionate power and exacerbating the problem when the offender gets out with a host of new connections to much worse criminals. Conversely 45 euros feels like a joke lost income notwithstanding. Racists are more deterred by inconvenience and mild discomfort than a chance to talk about themselves like they’re martyrs. A heavier fine collected repeatedly if the offenders can’t help but run their mouths and a prison stay brief enough that’s it’s little more than a temporary disruption to their lifestyle that deliberately makes them look like small fry with names not worth learning to the rest of the inmates (possibly after spending the day doing monitored community service, preferably in the community that was slandered) feels like it would be more effective to me. They chip slowly but surely away at their own financial security and quality of life this way with nobody to blame but themselves instead of a harder one off smackdown - one they would think to use to lionize themselves - and that’s going to leave more of a psychological sting. Even trying to look at it from the standpoint of someone who approves of their criminal actions petty crooks would eventually look down on them asking why they aren’t smarter criminals since they’re constantly getting caught for the same thing. They can further be pressed on why they’re *choosing* to become unreliable employees and a drag on the economy rather than being forced out of their jobs in such a way they can shift blame. *Choosing* to be absent from the lives of their families which is used heavily in racist rhetoric. Turn the tables on one of their own narratives.
At least… that’s how I see it playing out.
Apart from that it’s just depressing to know that a political party whose supporters are all such crass, cringeworthy, idiots who publicly harass good people in a profession that’s supposed to be defined by empathy for your fellows and service to the general public - people that might specifically be taking care of THEM in their infirmity when their families are unable or unwilling to do so passing them off as a burden as tends to be the custom among racists for all their disingenuous talk of looking out for their own - has a real shot at gaining enough power to let those crass idiots dip right into the worst of their depravities and indoctrinate their children into complete monsters without consequence. Even moreso to see this as a growing global trend in countries that are supposed to know better. They certainly like to think they’re bastions of enlightened civilisation, at any rate, even though we seem to be bent on clawing the world back into a Dark Age and having an even harder time learning from our mistakes.
@Passerby #200485
“A heavier fine collected repeatedly if the offenders can’t help but run their mouths”
There is your problem: you have to be able to prove that they ran their mouth. That occasion worked out because they were stupid enough to speak in front of a camera. Next time, they will not. And you will end up in a “she said, they said” situation where you cannot definitely prove one way or the other.
@Indicible #200489
I think you overestimate the intelligence of racists self-assured that they’re saying what everyone is thinking. That issue would remain for a single hard smack but the hard smack is something they would twist to feed their persecution complex. Something they may initially treat as a lighter slap on the wrist however they may not notice building up into something that threatens their quality of life - a building series of financial adjustments, personal sacrifices to luxuries they are accustomed to in order to cover expenses, the appearance of fiscal irresponsibility, and social consequences that would genuinely pain them more than hard time because of their sense of self-importance - and that’s the trap I want to catch them in along with limiting their chances to connect with more extreme elements and diminishing them in the eyes of more dangerous people they would have less chance to build a rep with. If time served is the only means they can cultivate their reputation in prison and the amount of time served is due to being unable to shut the hell up and having no sense? An organized criminal group that might have pulled them in during a long sentence from a single charge would instead consider them a liability to spill information and chase them away. A *seemingly* lighter punishment may initially cause them to reoffend quickly but at the same time it serves to make them appear all the more pathetic and the stigma of being a repeat offender, especially in a short timespan, can actually do more damage to their social life and job prospects as someone who is chronically unreliable and making trouble than a harsher sentence. It certainly works that way for minorities in North America who keep getting arrested on considerably less legitimate charges. I’m a fan of ironic comeuppance.
The translator missed some zero in the amount of the fine: it was 45000 € (see here and article 222-13 of the Penal Code ).
And, of course , Marine Le Pen told that it wasn’t racist (here for a free version), that it might have been a joke and that the victim was “a communist activist with pan-African supremacist beliefs.”
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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