“Dieudonné is not a humourist, but a fierce anti-Semite and a propagator of hate,” noted French historian and Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld says.

Klarsfeld spoke to The CJN last week about the controversial Franco-Camaroon humourist, whose anti-Semitic antics have made headlines recently, as French Interior Minister Manuel Valls took legal measures to ban the comic’s new, openly anti-Semitic live show, Le Mur, which he was to perform in some 20 French cities over the next few weeks.

Klarsfeld urged his fellow Frenchmen to demonstrate against Dieudonné’s latest show, and the appeal seems to have struck a chord, because Le Mur was cancelled by the prefects of several of the cities involved.

Translation: Dieudonné est un propagateur de haine’

“Dieudonné’s despicable behaviour shows the virulence of his anti-Semitism and of certain forms of Judeophobia, notably in his mocking the Holocaust, an appalling tragedy that had an important place in Fench and European history,” Klarsfeld said in an interview from his home in Paris.

“You can’t make fun with impunity of the innocent Jewish victims who were exterminated in the Nazi gas chambers, but Dieudonné says he regrets that [the gas chambers] are no longer running at full capacity,” Klarsfeld added.

“I stepped into the breach, because you can’t accept in a democracy that a man like Dieudonné, with his offensive show and his multiple convictions for inciting racial hatred… can be on tour in 22 cities in France to present a nauseatingly anti-Semitic show that will bring him a lot of money and reinforce the anti-Semitism of those who attend the gruesome performance. [His] shows have only one objective: to break the Jew.”

Asked about the how the French justice system is handling the issue, Klarsfeld said, “I think the magistrates already involved in this affair are referring it to the Conseil d’État, the highest administrative court in France… For the moment, one thing is certain – Le Mur will not be presented in France and Dieudonné has been silenced. He will be stopped. But if he can’t do the show in France, he will present it in other countries, maybe in Canada.”

Dieudonné’s last attempt to perform in Quebec in 2012 was cancelled at the last minute after the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs protested to the owners of the Montreal theatre where he was scheduled to appear.

“I am delighted that Quebecers showed such good judgment,” Klarsfeld said.

There are many who think Dieudonné’s latest show shouldn’t be banned, because it would be a flagrant attack on free expression and because he would portray himself as a martyr fighting the Jewish, Zionist lobby, but Klarsfeld strongly refuted this argument.

“Everyone knows that Dieudonné is an anti-Jew disguised as an anti-Zionist. Those who defend him in the name of freedom of expression… do so because Dieudonné attacks the Jews so ferociously,” he said.

“But let’s not kid ourselves. In Dieudonné’s case, there is no attack against freedom of expression, because his is clearly a criminal opinion, and… because inciting racial hatred or the denial of a crime against humanity falls under the section of French law forbidding incitement to racial hatred. Thus, if Dieudonné’s words are against the law, freedom of expression is no longer in question.”

Klarsfeld said the very controversial rally gesture known as the “Quenelle” – an inverted Nazi salute popularized by Dieudonné in his shows that has been adopted by many French athletes and young people – is not an “anti-system” gesture, but is basically anti-Semitic.

Klarsfeld said Dieudonné cynically exploits the economic crisis in France to make Jews the scapegoats who, in the comic’s opinion, are responsible for the country’s economic and social evils, echoing the atmosphere in France in the 1930s and ’40s.

“Politicians on the extreme right and a demagogue like Dieudonné shamelessly manipulate those most affected by the economic crisis, primarily the young immigrant Muslims and blacks living in the suburbs… by hammering at them that the only ones responsible for their existential economic problems are the Jews. The anti-Semitic stereotypes in vogue in the ’30s and ’40s are rebounding with force today in French society.”

Dieudonné’s supporters – those who go to his shows – are “radical, fiercely anti-Zionist followers of Islam,” Klarsfeld said.

“All the confirmed ‘Dieudonnistes’ have a common denominator: they are anti-Israel and anti-Jew. They are convinced that the Jewish multimillionaires and powerful Jewish financial leaders  are in a plot against the French working classes and the whole world. Their world vision is repugnant and frightening.”