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Dieudonné M'bala M'bala (born 11 February 1966 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine), generally known simply as Dieudonné is a French comedian, actor and political activist of Breton and Cameroonian descent. Dieudonne’s begins to see his public image progressively change in 2000 due to a controversial sketch made on public television depicting a terrorist Zionist Jew concluding by a “IsraHEIL” salute.

While originally positioned on the left in the 90s, He is now condemned by various “anti-racist” associations and considered an extreme right wing figure by the country’s national press, as well as numerous political formations and movements who accuse him as well of anti-Semitism .

As a result the comedian has been charmed by the franchise of the far-right Front National on numerous subjects such as Gaza or the unfair privileges the French Republic gives to the Béké.

His shows are regularly canceled throughout France by city mayors who are opposed to his venue, although no ruling has been pronounced. In Brussels, Belgium a court overruled the city's decision to cancel his appearance in 2009, citing the city should not decide and watch over what is politically correct .

Since 1997, Dieudonné has regularly stood in parliamentary and European Union elections as a candidate at the head of fringe or splinter parties, and has tried to run for two French presidential elections (2002 and 2007).

Biography

Personal

Dieudonné is the son of a sociologist from Brittany who exhibits as a painter under the name Josiane Grué, and of an accountant from Cameroon, who lives there now. Dieudonné is married to Noémie Montagne who works as his producer and has five children with her, Bonnie, Merlin, Plume, Noé and Judas. The godfather of the third child, Plume, is the chairman of the Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Activity as an actor

In the 1990s, Dieudonné appeared on stage and on television together with the Jewish comedian and actor Élie Semoun. From the mid-1990s he appeared mostly in supporting roles in several French film comedies. His most successful screen appearance to date was in Alain Chabat's box-office hit Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, in 2002, his last screen appearance to date was in Maurice Barthélémy's box-office bomb Casablanca Driver, in 2004. In 1997, the scenic duo "Elie et Dieudonné" split and each went on a solo theater career. 1998 however saw them united in a screen comedy, Le Clone which was a critical as well as box-office failure.

Successful one-man shows of Dieudonné included "Pardon Judas" (2000), "Le divorce de Patrick" (2003), and "1905" (2005). Other one-man shows were "Mes Excuses" (2004), "Dépôt de bilan" (2006) and "J'ai fait l'con" (2008), all understood as attacks on political and social opponents and defences of his own positions. Anti-zionist, anti-semitic statements made within and around these productions led to intense controversy and numerous lawsuits. Following the 2005 civil unrest in France, Dieudonné also penned a play called "Émeutes en banlieue" (riots in the suburbs, February 2006). In 2009, and surrounded by scandals (see below, "Political activities"), Dieudonné launched two one-man shows : "Liberté d’expression" and "Sandrine". While the latter was a follow-up to "Le divorce de Patrick" (Sandrine is the wife Patrick is divorcing from), the former was conceived as a series of intinerant "conferences" on "freedom of expression"

Dieudonné's production company first acted under the name "Bonnie Productions" and now under the name "Les productions de la Plume."

Théâtre de la Main d'Or

Dieudonné is the owner of the Théâtre de la Main d'Or in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which is used for both stand-up comedy and political events by himself and friends and allies such as the militant anti-Semitic "Tribu Ka" As part of the preparations for the French presidential election, 2007, the theater was also used for the training of representatives of the Front National, for which the FN paid Dieudonné 60,000 Euros.

Political Activities

Beginnings

Dieudonné was initially active on the anti-racist left. In the French legislative election, 1997, he fought with his party "Les Utopistes" in Dreux against the candidate of the Front National, Marie-France Stirbois, and received 8% of the vote. Verbally and in demonstrations, he also supported migrants without a residence permit (the so-called "sans papiers") and the Palestinians.

2002-2006

Since 2002, Dieudonné has attracted attention by increasingly polemical statements. In an interview for the magazine "Lyon Capitale" in January 2002, he described "the Jews" as "a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all, because it was the first" and said he preferred "the charisma of bin Laden to that of Bush". He subsequently failed to maintain his bid for running for the French presidential election, 2002.

On 1 December 2003, he appeared live on a television show, disguised as a Haredi (Orthodox) Jew making the Hitler salute and bellowing "Isra-Heil". He was cleared of 'anti-Semitism' in a Paris Court after the judge said this was not an attack against Jews in general but against a type of person "distinguished by their political views". At the European Parliament election, 2004, Dieudonné was candidate of the extreme left-wing party "Euro-Palestine", but left a few months after the election because of disagreements with its Jewish leaders.

On 16 February 2005, he declared during a press conference in Algiers, that the Central Council of French Jews CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) was a "mafia" that had "total control over French policy exercise", called the commemoration of the Holocaust "memorial pornography ("pornographie mémorielle") and claimed that the "Zionists of the Centre National de la Cinématographie", prevented him from making a film about the slave trade. Dieudonné was also trying to appear as a spokesman for the French Blacks, but, after some initial sympathy, notably from the novelist Calixthe Beyala, the journalists Antoine Garnier and Claudy Siar as well as the founding members of the Conseil représentatif des associations noires (CRAN), he increasingly met with their rejection.

During the years 2005 and 2006, Dieudonné was often in the company of the senior Front National members Bruno Gollnisch, Frédéric Châtillon, and Marc George (also known as Marc Robert), the man who would conduct his electoral campaigns in 2007 and 2009. Dieudonné also frequently appeared together with the conspiracy theorist Thierry Meyssan and the former Marxist and current right-wing radical Alain Soral, a confidant of Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Under the influence of Soral's writings and polemics, Dieudonné was acquainted with his militant antisemitism of French nationalist inspiration. In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois. Demonstrating shoulder to shoulder with Islamists, he also marched on 11 February 2006 in the Parisian demonstration against the Muhammad cartoons and traveled at the end of August 2006 with Châtillon, Meyssan and Soral in Lebanon, to meet MPs and fighters of the Hezbollah. Some Jews reacted angrily to what was perceived as an endless series of verbal and political attacks. On 2 March 2005 four French Jews attacked him in Martinique. The assailants were imprisoned for a month.In May 2006 he was involved in a fight with two teenage Jews in Paris, one of whom he sprayed with tear gas. Dieudonné claimed that the teenagers attacked him first; both parties pressed charges, but the lawsuits were not pursued. In France and abroad, Dieudonné became increasingly perceived as an extremist of a type until then uncommon in Europe. In the introduction to a March 2006 interview, The Independent called him a "French Louis Farrakhan... obsessed with Jews".

2007-2009

Dieudonné wanted to finally represent politically these ever radicalized positions in the French presidential elections, 2007, but for logistical reasons he could not maintain his candidacy, whose campaign was conducted by Marc George. The convicted Holocaust denier Serge Thion wrote for his campaign web site under the pseudonym "Serge Noith", as did also the longtime secretary of the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, Maria Poumier. After the end of his candidacy, Dieudonné appeared several times publicly in the company of Jean-Marie Le Pen and traveled to Cameroon with Le Pen's wife Jany. However, officially, Dieudonné called for the election of anti-globalization militant José Bové, despite Bové asking Dieudonné not to do so.

On 26 December 2008 at an event in Parc de la Villette Paris, Dieudonné gave the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, a "prize for maladaption and impertinence". The award was presented by one of Dieudonné's assistants, Jacky, dressed in a concentration camp uniform with a yellow star. This caused a scandal. On 29 January 2009 he celebrated the 80th birthday of Faurisson in his theater, in the midst of a representative gathering of Holocaust deniers, right-wing radicals, and radical Shiites .

On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dieudonné announced that he would run for the European Parliament election, 2009 in the Île-de-France at the head of an "anti-communautarist and anti-Zionist" party. Other candidates on his party's electoral list are Alain Soral and the Holocaust denier and former member of Les Verts Ginette Skandrani (also known as Ginette Hess), while Thierry Meyssan and Afrocentrist Kémi Seba, founder of the "Tribu Ka" are members of the partybut do not run. The campaign would be conducted again by Marc George. In spite of the association of Dieudonné's party with the shiite Centre Zahra, whose president Yahia Gouasmi also runs on his list, his candidacy was endorsed by the influential sunni scholar Tariq Ramadan and is further supported by Fernand Le Rachinel, a former high ranking executive of the Front National and official printer of the party. In early May 2009, the French government studied the possibility of banning the party , but on May 24, Justice minister Rachida Dati acknowledged that, in spite of moral objections, there was no legal ground to do so. On May 28, it became known that Carlos "the Jackal" also expressed his hope Dieudonné would make it to Strasbourg. The Parti antisioniste finally scored 1,30% of the votes.

Court convictions

• On June 14, 2006 Dieudonné was sentenced to a penalty of 4,500 Euro for defamation after having called a prominent Jewish television presenter a "secret donor of the child-murdering Israeli army".
• On November 15, 2007, an appellate court convicted him to a 5,000 Euro fine because he had treated "the Jews" as "slave traders".
• On 26 June 2008, he was sentenced in the last judicial instance to a 7,000 Euro fine for his designation of the Holocaust as "memorial pornography".
• On 27 February 2009 he was sentenced in Montreal to a fine of 75,000 Canadian dollars for defamatory statements with antisemtic undertones against the singer and actor Patrick Bruel.
• On 26 March 2009 Dieudonné was sentenced to a total of 3,000 Euros for defamation after having criticised Elisabeth Schemla, a Jewish journalist who runs the Proche-Orient.Info website. He declared on 31 May 2005 that the website wanted to "eradicate Dieudonné from the audiovisual landscape" and had said of him that "he's an anti-semite, he's the son of Hitler, he will exterminate everyone.".

References

1. « Dieudonné, côté obscur », Libération, 2 janvier 2009.
2. Dieudonné chez Fogiel, « Dieudonné chez Fogiel», 25 février 2003.
3. Abel Mestre et Caroline Monnot, « Les étranges amitiés de Dieudonné », Le Monde, 25 février 2009.
4. Abel Mestre et Caroline Monnot, « Les étranges amitiés de Dieudonné », Le Monde, 25 février 2009.
5. Par l'UMP : « Dieudonné/Faurisson : “scandaleux” pour l'UMP », Le Nouvel observateur, 31 décembre 2008. Par le Modem : pour Marielle de Sarnez, « Il ne faut pas banaliser les propos de Dieudonné. Il faut les combattre !! » (Déclaration sur RMC, 4 mai 2009). Par Les Verts : cf. Dieudonné, venue non souhaitée à Villeneuve d’Ascq. Par le Parti communiste français : cf. Interdiction des listes Dieudonné : à quoi joue la droite ? Par divers mouvements antiracistes, notamment SOS-Racisme (cf. « Dieudonné, propagandiste du négationnisme ») ou le MRAP (cf. « Dieudonné ne fait plus rire »), « Dieudonné recycle les pires thèmes de l'extrême-droite ». Par le Parti socialiste : dans Le Parisien (« Dieudonné veut passer à la télé », 2 avril 2009), Malek Boutih, membre du bureau national du PS, juge ainsi que « Dieudonné fait partie de la famille lepéniste », tandis que Harlem Désir, tête de liste PS en Ile-de-France, considère Dieudonné « à l’extrême droite de l’extrême droite » ; Laurent Fabius se dit {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) par les {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) de Dieudonné, cf. « Dieudonné : le PS demande “à quoi joue l'Élysée ?” », Le Nouvel Observateur, 5 mai 2009. Par le Parti de gauche, qui estime que la liste de Dieudonné aux européennes 2009 pratique un {{citation}}: Empty citation (help), cf. communiqué du comité de Romainville le 27 mai 2009. Par plusieurs mouvances d'extrême gauche : « Dieudonné, une liste d'extrême droite en plus... », communiqué du Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste ; « Dieudonné tel qu’il est », REFLEXes, Template:1er juin 2009
6. l'humoriste Dieudonné à la fête Bleu-blanc-rouge
7. Dieudonné se compare à Domota
8. Interdit d'interdire Dieudonné en Belgique
9. "La presse se déchaîne contre africamaat à travers Dieudonné : extraits. - AfricaMaat". AfricaMaat. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
10. Denis Touret (2005-11-19). "Anne-Sophie Mercier". Denistouret.net. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
11. "Interdit de casino, « Dieudonné sera quand même là lundi, accompagné d'un huissier ! » - Actualité Dunkerque - Nord - La Voix du Nord". Lavoixdunord.fr. 2009-03-18. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
12. "Dieudonné - Biography". Imdb.com. 1966-02-11. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
13. Le Pen : "Oui, je suis le parrain de la fille de Dieudonné", Le Point, 17 July 2008
14. "Le clone (1998)". Imdb.com. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
15. Dieudonné : rappel des principaux faits entourant la polémique, Observatoire du communautarisme, 26 February 2005
16. Dieudonné donne une "conférence" dans un car, Le Nouvel Observateur, 18 March 2009
17. Les provocs de la Tribu KA, Le Nouvel Observateur, 08 June 2006
18. Dieudonné réclame la grâce de Kémi Séba, Prochoix, 26 February 2007
19. Le généreux coup de pouce de Le Pen à Dieudonné, Le Parisien, undated (after 2007)
20. Dieudonné - Bouffon de cour, voir.ca (reissued on Vigile.net), 14 June 2007
21. Dieudonné jugé raciste en cassation, L’Express, 25 October 2007
22. Et si Dieudonné n'avait jamais existé... desourcesure.com, 24 March 2009
23. Dieudonné, la promo par le pire, 24 heures, 07 January 2009
24. "French comic 'not anti-Semitic'". BBC. 2004-05-27. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
25. Dieudonné sur une pente très glissante, Euro-Palestine, 29 October 2004
26. A Alger, l'humoriste qualifie la commémoration de la Shoah de "pornographie mémorielle", aidh.org, February 2005
27. Stephen Smith, Géraldine Faes: Noir et Français!, Éditions du Panama, April 2006, ISBN 2755701064; Bernhard Schmid: Reise nach Beirut. Trend-online, 2005
28. Dieudonné et ses fans du FN amnistia.info, 21 December 2006
29. ^ Châtillon, Le GUD des autres, Bakchich.info, 13 November 2006
30. Dieudonné, côté obscur, Libération, 02 January 2009
31. Dieudonné, le comique tripier; Alain Soral: Le sous-Marine du Front National, Amnistia.net, 28 February 2005 & 4 December 2006
32. Laugh Riots, The New Yorker, 19 November 2007
33. Cover of Le Choc du mois, May 2006 issue, prominently featuring Dieudonné
34. Dieudonné agressé en Martinique
35. "Heard the One about the racist black comedian?", The Independent, March 22, 2006.
36. Dieudonné guide de Mme Le Pen au Cameroun, grioo.com, 16 March 2007
37. Dieudonné soutient Bové, qui le récuse, L’Express, 16 January 2007
38. Dieudonné/Faurisson : le parquet de Paris ouvre une enquête préliminaire, Le Nouvel Observateur, 31 December 2008
39. Les étranges amitiés de Dieudonné, Le Monde, 24. Februar 2009
40. Dieudonné, candidat "antisioniste" aux européennes, Le Monde, 23 March 2009
41. Dieudonné candidat aux élections européennes, Le Figaro, 22 March 2009
42. http://www.nationspresse.info/?p=50603
43. Les amis très particuliers du centre Zahra, L'Express, 27 February 2009
44. Un Juif avec barbe et chapeau sur l'affiche de Dieudonné, Rue89, 02 June 2009
45. Au Bourget, Tariq Ramadan a apporté sa caution à Soral et à Dieudonné, Rue89, 20 April 2009
46. Le créancier du FN "s'amuse" avec la liste de Dieudonné, Le Monde, 26 May 2009
47. "Les listes antisionistes de Dieudonné menacées d'interdiction | À la Une | Reuters". Fr.reuters.com. 2009-02-09. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
48. "France seeks poll bar for comic" by Emma Jane Kirby, BBC News, May 5,2009
49. Dati : "on n'a pas trouvé d'éléments" pouvant empêcher Dieudonné de se présenter aux européennes, Le Nouvel Observateur, 24 May 2009
50. Le terroriste Carlos soutient Dieudonné, Le Parisien, 28 May 2009
51. La liste "anti-sioniste" de Dieudonné obtient 1,30% en Ile-de-France, Agence France Presse, 8 June 2009
52. Dieudonné renonce à faire appel de sa condamnation pour diffamation envers Arthur, La Dépêche du Midi, 19 September 2007
53. Dieudonné condamné pour propos antisémites, Le Figaro, undated
54. Dieudonné, star de la semaine judiciaire, Le Figaro, 26 June 2008
55. Dieudonné condamné au Québec à payer 75.000 dollars à Patrick Bruel, Agence France Presse, 28 February 2009
56. Dieudonné condamné pour diffamation, Le Parisien, 26. März 2009

Bibliography

Books

• Anne-Sophie Mercier, La vérité sur Dieudonné, Plon, 2005
• Olivier Mukuna, Dieudonné. Entretien à cœur ouvert, Éditions EPO, 2004

Articles

• Jürg Altwegg, Die große Show der Auschwitz-Lügner als Duett eines Komikers mit dem Geschichtsfälscher Robert Faurisson, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 6 January 2009, p. 36
• Agathe André, Mon réveillon chez les Faurissons. Charlie Hebdo n° 864, 7 January 2009, p. 2

External links

• Dieudonné M'bala M'bala at IMDb 
• Bernard Schmid: Dieudonné, der gar nicht lustige Komiker, hagalil.com, 21 February 2005
• Gudrun Eussner: „Der Effekt Dieudonné – weitere rassistische Aggressionen gegen Juden“, 6 and 7 March 2006
• Dieudonné's Anti-Zionist Party

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• Living people
• Living deaths
• People from Hauts-de-Seine
• French people of Cameroonian descent
• People of Breton descent
• Comedians
• French atheists
• French entertainers
• Antisemitism in France
• Holocaust denial
• French humorists
• Cameroonian actors