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, reports FRANCE 24.
In the wake of two highly-publicised 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.
Numerous politicians took to Twitter to demand the prosecution of the magazine's editor and publisher for incitement to racial hatred. Rights group SOS Racisme said it would lodge a legal complaint over the cover, a move that will force authorities to investigate whether any law has been breached.
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.
Read more of this AFP report published by FRANCE 24.