PARIS: The Twitter account of the French far-right weekly Rivarol was suspended Monday after repeated denunciations by watchdogs, with an anti-racism group hailing an “important victory”.
The French government’s special representative on racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination, Frederic Potier, said the suspension was thanks to a “mobilisation... against online hate speech”.
The Rivarol Twitter account “uncontestably called for racial hatred and sympathised with crimes against humanity“, a spokesman told AFP.
In a tweet on Feb 13 the weekly wrote: “When I was a child I didn’t understand why Jews were detested by all people, all nations throughout history. Today I don’t even ask the question anymore. Actually I do, I wonder why they aren’t (detested) more.”
Sacha Ghozlan, head of the French Union of Jewish Students, told AFP: “It’s an important victory and a brake on this anti-Semitic rag that has been spreading hatred of Jews for years.”
He said he suspected that Rivarol’s editor Jerome Bourbon – whose own Twitter account was already suspended – was personally behind the magazine’s tweets.
Several rallies against anti-Semitism are planned across France on Tuesday. — AFP
