Vingt-Trois backs stand against anti-Semitic comic

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris, has supported the tough line the French Government announced against Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a comedian repeatedly convicted on hate speech charges for anti-Semitic sketches that have become increasingly popular on social media.

The cardinal welcomed Interior Minister Manuel Valls’ efforts to block a planned national tour by Dieudonné, whose sketches prompted Jewish leaders to appeal to President François Hollande in December to take measures against him.

“It is scandalous that we should be insensitive to this progressive lowering of the barriers that should not be crossed,” Cardinal Vingt-Trois told the Paris Catholic station Radio Notre Dame. “A culture of respecting others, and other religions, must be replanted.”

Dieudonné’s trademark “quenelle” gesture is a straight-arm salute downwards, or a “Nazi salute in reverse,” as Jewish leaders call it.

The gesture has become popular among far-right French who know its meaning and many Dieudonné fans, some of whom claim it is simply an anti-establishment gesture.

The French West Bromwich Albion striker Nicolas Anelka is being investigated by the Football Association after making the gesture after scoring against West Ham United. He insisted afterwards it was not anti-Semitic.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois was less approving of Mr Valls for failing to criticise a protest by a Femen activist who rushed to the altar of La Madeleine church in Paris on 20 December and claimed to simulate an abortion. The Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, and the two candidates running for his job in March, criticised the attack. “A short distance away, at the Interior Ministry, nobody knew anything was happening,” the cardinal said with irony.