Racist Comments Made to France’s Justice Minister, Again?

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November 14, 2013

By Agence-France Presse

France’s justice minister has been publicly subjected to racist taunts for the third time in barely a month, triggering a wave of outrage Tuesday over the hounding of the country’s top black politician.

In the wake of two highly publicized incidents in which the minister, Christiane Taubira, was compared to a monkey, far right weekly magazine Minute published a cover page with the headline “Crafty as a monkey, Taubira gets her banana back”.

Amid an outcry over the magazine’s contents, Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced he was examining whether it was legally possible to block the distribution of the magazine.

“We cannot let this pass,” he said. […] Harlem Desir, the First Secretary of the ruling Socialist Party and one of the founders of SOS Racisme, said all copies of the magazine should be seized by police.

Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron called the cover “Unacceptable and nauseating” and there was also widespread condemnation from members of the centre-right UMP opposition party. Taubira is a hate figure for some on the right in French politics as she was the minister responsible for the legislation of gay marriage earlier this year.

[…]

Last week, she spoke publicly of her dismay over the attacks she has been subjected to and implicitly criticised her government colleagues for not coming to her defence. Warning of a threat to France’s social cohesion, Taubira told the Liberation daily that, “Inhibitions are disappearing, dykes have been breached.”

[…]

The treatment of Taubira has sparked much soul-searching among liberal commentators over whether racism has become widely acceptable in parts of French society.

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