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France and the BDS Movement

(American Thinker) Michael Curtis - Over the last year, France has displayed courage and initiative in dealing with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism in African countries. Now it is taking the lead in using legal means to counter and punish those participating in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which the French legal system views as an expression of anti-Semitism and as a crime. By the Gayssot Law, enacted on July 13, 1990, France made it a criminal offense to question the existence or the number of crimes against humanity on the basis of the category of crimes prosecuted at the Nuremberg Tribunal. France has gone beyond the Gayssot Law. It realized that the BDS movement against Israel is the latest weapon being used in the attempt to destroy Israel and is implicitly anti-Semitic because of its concentration on Jews. The Lellouche law, promulgated on February 3, 2003, extends the definition of discrimination to include members of national groups and has been applied in a number of cases against boycotters. In 2009 and 2010, twelve activists who had entered a supermarket in Mulhouse and put stickers with anti-Israeli slogans on vegetables imported from Israel were arrested and fined. The leader of the group, Farida Trichine, wore a "boycott Israel" shirt during the activity. On December 1, 2013, the Court of Appeals of Colmar fined each of the twelve boycotters individually for activity that it considered "provocation to discrimination." The ruling, based on the Lellouche law, overturned a lower court verdict that found the twelve not guilty.
2014-02-24 00:00:00
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