French prosecutor investigates show
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A Paris prosecutor has launched an inquiry into a French comedian’s controversial TV sketch, which many say was anti-Semitic.
Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala appeared wearing guerrilla clothing and a Jewish skullcap and made a Nazi salute in the live show on France 3 television on Dec. 1.
As he made the salute he invited “youths watching today from suburban high-rises to join the American-Zionist axis.” He then cried “IsraHeil,” in an apparent reference to the “Heil Hitler” salute of Nazi Germany.
“The sketch and the words in question seem capable of constituting defamation of a racial character,” Paris prosecutor Yves Bot said.
Dieudonne, born in the Paris suburbs to a French mother and a Cameroonian father, has previously landed in trouble after saying he “preferred Osama bin Laden’s charisma to that of U.S. President George W. Bush.”
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