Authorities in French cities are considering a ban on a one-man show by the controversial French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala – generally known simply as Dieudonné – whose provocative downward version of a Nazi salute was performed during an English Premier League football match by his friend Nicolas Anelka, reports The Guardian.
Dieudonné has popularised the gesture, known in French as the quenelle, although he denies that it is antisemitic and racist. He claims that the salute, which combines a downward Nazi salute with an obscene gesture meaning "up yours", is anti-establishment. Anelka, who made the gesture on Saturday after scoring a goal for West Bromwich Albion in a match broadcast on French television, is being investigated by the Football Association and his gesture triggered a furious reaction in France.
The sports minister, Valérie Fourneyron, described Anelka's gesture as a "shocking and sickening provocation", and on Sunday her rightwing predecessor, Chantal Jouanno, demanded sanctions against the 34-year-old French striker. "The quenelle is a Nazi gesture that is clearly antisemitic and known to be such. There's no point in arguing about the interpretation," she told Europe 1 radio. Jewish student leaders and the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris condemned the use of the salute by Anelka, footage of which has gone viral on the internet.
Anelka's gesture, which he described on Twitter as "a special dedication to my friend Dieudonné", came after the French interior minister, Manuel Valls, announced he would seek a legal ban on the French comedian's shows on the grounds that they were a threat to public order. Dieudonné is performing to full houses in a Paris theatre before taking his show across France from 9 January. In an interview with Le Parisien on Saturday, Valls said the last straw had been Dieudonné's attacks on Jewish journalists. In a recent show, Dieudonné said of the journalist Patrick Cohen, who asked him last week whether journalists were giving him too much attention, that "when I hear Patrick Cohen speaking, I say to myself, you see, the gas chambers … too bad [they no longer exist]".
Read more of this report from The Guardian.