The case involved a video posted online on October 6, 2020, titled "Episode 90," in which the defendant Dieudonné M'bala M'bala addressed Mme Rachel Khan. The victim, a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who identifies with the Jewish community, had previously written an article in the Huffington Post criticizing antisemitic lyrics in rap music and questioning the rise of a "Dieudonné 2.0".
In the video, the defendant made several controversial remarks, including references to "Jewish censorship" and "Jewish scams". The specific statement prosecuted as a public insult was: "tu resteras une pauvre négresse à la fin de l'histoire" ("you will remain a poor negress at the end of the story"). The lower court (Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris) had initially convicted the defendant on September 15, 2022, sentencing him to 100 day-fines of 100 euros each.
The Paris Court of Appeal quashed the lower court's judgment, acquitted the defendant, arguing that therefore appears that, in the context in which they were made, the remarks in question cannot be considered to constitute offensive language, contemptuous terms, or invective.
However, the decision has since been overturned by the Cour de Cassation, and in January 2026, the Cour d'appel de Paris ruled that the defendant's statements did indeed constitute an insult.
l'article 10 de la Convention européenne des droits de l'homme