Dieudonné M’bala M’bala
Dieudonné in 2009
Born	11 February 1966 (age 47) Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Occupation	Comedian, politician.

Dieudonné M’bala M’bala (born 11 February 1966), generally known by his stage name Dieudonné (French: [djø.dɔ.ne]), is a controversial French comedian, actor, and political activist. His father is from Cameroon and his mother is French.

Dieudonné initially achieved success with a Jewish comedian, Élie Semoun, humorously exploiting racial stereotypes. At that time, he campaigned against racism and unsuccessfully presented himself in the 1997 and 2001 legislative elections in Dreux against the National Front, the French far right wing party which he perceived as racist.^[1][2]

On 1 December 2003, Dieudonné performed a sketch on a TV show about an Israeli settler whom he depicted as a Nazi. Some critics argued that he had “crossed the limits of antisemitism” and several organizations sued him for incitement to racial hatred.

Dieudonné refused to apologize and denounced “zionism” and the Jewish lobby, arguing that he had “mocked a Mullah in [his] previous show and that [he] should be allowed to make fun of zionist extremists in the same manner”.^[3]

Dieudonné subsequently found himself with increasing frequency banned from mainstream media, and many of his shows were cancelled by local authorities. Active on the internet and in his Paris theater, Dieudonné has continued to have a wide following.^[4]

Dieudonné approached Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front political party that he had fought earlier in his life, and the men became political allies and friends, with Le Pen even becoming the godfather of one of Dieudonné’s daughters.^[5]

Dieudonné became a close friend of Alain Soral, a controversial writer with whom he shares many anti-establishment and anti-zionist views. He ran for President of France in the 2007 elections under the “anti-zionist party”.

Dieudonné’s provocations culminated in the appearance of holocaust denier Robert Faurisson in one of his shows in 2008.^[6][7]

He described Holocaust remembrance as “memorial pornography“.^[8] He was convicted in court 8 times on antisemitism charges.^[9][10] His quenelle signature gesture went viral in 2013 particularly after footballer Nicolas Anelka made a quenelle during a match in December 2013.

After Dieudonné was recorded during a performance mocking a Jewish journalist, suggesting it’s a pity he was not sent to the gas chambers,^[11] French Interior Minister Manuel Valls stated that Dieudonné was “no longer a comedian” but was rather an “anti-Semite and racist” and that he would seek to ban all Dieudonné’s public gatherings as they amounted to a public safety risk.^[12] The ban on his shows has been confirmed by the courts.^[13]

Personal life[edit]

Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of a white French painter and retired sociologist from Brittany who exhibits as a painter under the name Josiane Grué, and a black accountant from Ekoudendi, Cameroon.^[8][14]

His parents divorced when he was one year old, and he was brought up by his mother. He attended Catholic school, though his mother was a New Age Buddhist.^[15] Dieudonné lives with Noémie Montagne, who works as his producer,^[16] and he has five children with her.^[17]

Performing career[edit]

After getting his baccalaureate in computer science, Dieudonné began writing and practicing routines with his childhood friend, Jewish comedian and actor Élie Semoun.

They formed a comedic duo, Élie et Dieudonné, and performed in local cafés and bars while Dieudonné worked as a salesman, selling cars, telephones, and photocopy machines.

In 1992, a Paris comedian spotted them and helped them stage their first professional show.^[15] In the 1990s, they appeared on stage and on television together as “Élie et Dieudonné”.

In 1997 they split and each went onto a solo theater career. In 1998, they reunited in a screen comedy, Le Clone,^[18] which was a failure critically and financially. From the mid-1990s Dieudonné appeared in several French film comedies, primarily in supporting roles.

His most successful screen appearance to date was in Alain Chabat‘s box-office hit Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra in 2002. In 2004, he appeared in Maurice Barthélémy‘s box office bomb Casablanca Driver.

Dieudonné’s successful one-man shows include 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-Semitic statements made within and around these productions led to intense controversy and numerous lawsuits.^[19] Following the 2005 civil unrest in France, Dieudonné also penned a play called Émeutes en banlieue (Riots in the Suburbs, February 2006).

In 2009, 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 Patrick’s ex-wife), the former was conceived as a series of itinerant “conferences” on “free speech“.^[20]

Started on 18 June 2010 in his theater, Dieudonné’s most recent show to date, Mahmoud (standing for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) has an openly antisemitic tone,^[21]caricaturing Jews, slavery and “official” versions of history.^[22]

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

In 2012 Dieudonné made his directorial debut in a film called L’Antisémite (The Anti-Semite),^[23] which stars him as a violent and alcoholic character who dresses as a Nazi officer at a party, and also features the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, as well as imagery that mocks Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners.^[24]

The movie, which was produced by the Iranian Documentary and Experimental Film Center, is also known by the title “Yahod Setiz“. Its scheduled screening at the Cannes Film Festival‘s Marché du Film (the parallel film market event) was canceled.^[25] The film is to be commercialized on the internet and sold to subscribers of Dieudonné’s activities.^[26]

Théâtre de la Main d’Or[edit]

Dieudonné is the lessee 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.

Political activities and Views[edit]

Beginnings[edit]

Dieudonné was initially active on the anti-racist left. In the 1997 French legislative election, he worked with his party, “Les Utopistes”, in Dreux against National Front candidate Marie-France Stirbois and received 8% of the vote.^[27] Verbally and in demonstrations, he also supported migrants without a residence permit (the so-called “sans papiers”) and the Palestinians.

2002–2006[edit]

Dieudonné in 2006

Since 2002, Dieudonné has attracted attention by making 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“.^[28] He subsequently ran for president in the 2002 presidential election, but later dropped out of the race.^[29]

On 1 December 2003, he appeared live on a television show disguised as a parody of an Israeli settler wearing military fatigues and a Haredi (Orthodox) Jewish hat. The sketch climaxed with a Hitler salute, after which Dieudonné shouts out a word.

According to Dieudonné, he shouted “Israël”, in the persona of the settler. In the following days, some news agencies stated that he shouted “Isra – Heil” or “Heil Israel“.^[30][31]

He was cleared of charges of antisemitism 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”.^[32]

At the European Parliament election, 2004, Dieudonné was candidate for the extreme left-wing party “Euro-Palestine”, but left a few months after the election because of disagreements with its leaders.^[33]

Dieudonné is the director of the Les Ogres website, where he makes plain his denial of the official version of the 9/11 events.

Following this television appearance, a Dieudonné show in Lyon (at La Bourse du Travail) on 5 February 2004 was picketed and a bottle containing a corrosive product was thrown in the venue, injuring a spectator.^[34][35]

On 11 November, Dieudonné organized a debate with 4 rabbis of Naturei Karta in the Théâtre de la Main d’Or in Paris.^[36]

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”^[8] (“pornographie mémorielle“), and claimed that the “Zionists of the Centre National de la Cinématographie” which “control French cinema” prevented him from making a film about the slave trade.^[37][38]

Dieudonné was also trying to appear as a spokesman for 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.^[39]

Throughout 2005 and 2006, Dieudonné was often in the company of senior National Frong members Bruno Gollnisch,^[40] Frédéric Châtillon,^[41] and Marc George (also known as Marc Robert), the man who went on to conduct his electoral campaigns in 2007 and 2009.^[42]

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.^[43]

Under the influence of Soral’s writings and polemics, Dieudonné was acquainted with his militant antisemitism of French nationalist inspiration.^[44] In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois.

^[45]Demonstrating shoulder to shoulder with Islamists, he also traveled at the end of August 2006 with Châtillon, Meyssan and Soral in Lebanon, to meet MPs and fighters of the Hezbollah.^[41]

Some Jews reacted angrily to his comments on this tour. In April 2005, Dieudonné went to Auschwitz.^[46] 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,^[47] 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”.^[48]

2007–2009[edit]

Dieudonné wanted to finally represent politically these ever-radicalized positions in the 2007 presidential election, but for logistical reasons he could not maintain his candidacy, which was organized by Marc Robert (a.k.a. Marc George).^[49]

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.^[50] However, officially, Dieudonné called for the election of anti-globalization militant José Bové, despite Bové’s asking Dieudonné not to do so.^[51]

In July 2008, Jean-Marie Le Pen became godfather to Dieudonné’s third child. Philippe Laguérie, a traditionalist Catholic priest, officiated at the baptism, which was held in the Saint-Éloi congregation in Bordeaux.^[52]

On 26 December 2008, at an event at the Parc de la Villette in Paris, Dieudonné awarded the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson an “insolent outcast” prize [prix de l’infréquentabilité et de l’insolence]. The award was presented by one of Dieudonné’s assistants, Jacky, dressed in a concentration camp uniform with a yellow badge. This caused a scandal^[53] and earned him his sixth court conviction to date. 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.^[54] Dieudonné and Faurisson further appeared together in a video making fun of the Holocaust and its commemoration.^[55]

On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dieudonné announced that he would run for the 2009 European Parliament election in the Île-de-France at the head of an “anti-communitarist 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 (the French Green Party) Ginette Skandrani(also known as Ginette Hess),^[56] while Thierry Meyssan and Afrocentrist Kémi Seba, founder of the “Tribu Ka” are members of the party^[57] but do not run.

The campaign would be conducted again by Marc George.^[58] In spite of the association of Dieudonné’s party with the Shiite Centre Zahra,^[59] whose president Yahia Gouasmi also runs on his list,^[60] his candidacy was supported by Fernand Le Rachinel, a former high ranking executive of the National Front and official printer of the party.^[61]

In early May 2009, the French government studied the possibility of banning the party,^[62][63] but on 24 May, Justice minister Rachida Dati acknowledged that, in spite of moral objections, there was no legal ground to do so.^[64] On 28 May, it became known that Carlos “the Jackal” also expressed his hope Dieudonné would make it to Strasbourg.^[65] The Parti antisioniste finally scored 1.30% of the votes.^[66]

2010–2012[edit]

On 9 May 2012, Police in Brussels, Belgium, stopped Dieudonné mid-performance after determining that his performance contravened local laws, and forced the cancellation of two more shows, but in Nov 2013, a Brussels Justice found that the comedian was not using anti-Semitic slurs or inciting racial hatred during the show that was interrupted in May 2012.^[67]

On 21 June, Dieudonné complained against the Brussels police.^[68] On 12 May 2012, event producer Evenko forced the cancellation of Dieudonné’s shows in Montreal, Canada, on 14, 15, 16, and 17 May, citing “contractual conflicts”.^[69] In late May 2012, a screening of Dieudonné’s directorial debut, “L’Antisémite” (“The Anti-Semite”), was canceled at the Marché du Film, the market held at the Cannes Film Festival.^[8]

2013[edit]

Dieudonné released a song and dance called “Shoananas”, performed to the tune of the 1985 children’s video and song by Annie Cordy, “Cho Ka Ka O” (Chaud Cacao or Hot Chocolate in English),^[70] which itself by today’s standards might be considered antisemitic.^[71] The term “Shoananas” is a portmanteau of Shoah, the Hebrew word used to refer to the Holocaust, and ananas, the French word for pineapple.^[72]

Dieudonné started a trend among his supporters of getting photographed making a unique gesture he invented and dubbed the “quenelle“. For some it is just a vulgar gesture of opposition to French institutions, for extremists it is an antisemitic gesture and was dubbed a “reverse Nazi salute” or even “sodomization of shoah’s victims” (Alain Jakubowicz) because while a Nazi salute involves an upraised straight arm, the quenelle involves a straight arm pointed at the ground.

In December, while performing onstage, Dieudonné was recorded saying about prominent French Jewish radio journalist Patrick Cohen: “Me, you see, when I hear Patrick Cohen speak, I think to myself: ‘Gas chambers… too bad.”’”^[73]

Radio France, Cohen’s employer, announced on 20 December that it had alerted authorities that Dieudonné had engaged in “openly anti-Semitic speech”, and various French anti-racism watchdog groups filed complaints.^[73]

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced he would try to legally ban public performances by Dieudonné. Valls stated that Dieudonne was “no longer a comedian” but was rather an “anti-Semite and racist” who has run afoul of France’s laws against incitement to racial hatred.

“Despite a conviction for public defamation, hate speech and racial discrimination, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala no longer seems to recognize any limits,” Valls wrote.

“Consequently, the interior minister has decided to thoroughly examine all legal options that would allow a ban on Dieudonné’s public gatherings, which no longer belong to the artistic domain, but rather amount to a public safety risk.”^[10]

On 31 December, Dieudonné released a 15 minute video proposing that “2014 will be the year of the quenelle!”.^[74] In it, Dieudonné attacks “bankers” and “slavers”, so as not to say “Jews”^[75] and end up in a lawsuit, and calls upon his followers, “quenelleurs”—those who listen and follow him—towards a hatred of Jews.^[75]

“Antisemite? I’m not of that opinion,” he says in the video. “I’m not saying I’d never be one… I leave myself open to that possibility, but for the moment, no.” Later, he added, “I don’t have to choose between the Jews and the Nazis.”^[74][75]

2014[edit]

On 6 January, France’s interior minister Manuel Valls said that performances considered anti-Semitic may be banned by local officials. In support of this, Valls sent a 3-page memo to all prefects of Police in France on 6 January entitled, “The Struggle Against Racism and Antisemitism—demonstrations and public reaction—performances by Mr. Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala “.

With respect to freedom of speech in France and banning scheduled performances ahead of time, Valls wrote: “The struggle against racism and antisemitism is an essential concern of government and demands vigorous action.” He takes note of the liberty of expression in France, but goes on to say that in exceptional circumstances, the police are invested with the power to prohibit an event if its intent is to prevent “a grave disturbance of public order” and cites the 1933 law supporting this.^[76]

Within hours, Bordeaux became the first French city to ban Dieudonné when mayor Alain Juppé canceled a local appearance planned as part of a scheduled national tour, ^[77]followed closely by Nantes,^[78] Tours, Orleans, Toulouse, Limoges, and Biarritz. The show in Switzerland will go on as scheduled, while other cities are still studying the situation.^[79] The Paris Prefect of Police on 10 January prohibited Dieudonné from staging his next three upcoming shows at his Paris theatre.^[80]

Some officials from both sides of the political spectrum have reservations about the legal validity of the Valls circular, and believe that cancellations could leave their cities liable for judgments of millions of euros in damages to Dieudonné if he sues and wins, as actually occurred in La Rochelle in 2012.^[81]

According to a poll by IFOP for Metronews taken on 8–9 January 2014, 71% of the French population had a negative image of Dieudonné while 16% held a positive view. The voters of the National Front were the least negative, with 54% seeing him negatively and 32% positively.^[82]

On 11 January 2014, he announced he would not perform his show Le Mur but will replace it with another one, Asu Zoa, that he wrote in three nights and that would talk about “dance and music inspired by ancestral myths”.^[83]

The quenelle gesture[edit]

The quenelle, invented by Dieudonné, is a gesture consisting of a downward straight arm touched at the shoulder by the opposite hand.

The gesture has also been described as a reverse Nazi salute.^[84] In French, quenelle normally refers to a type of dumpling. Images of the quenelle became viral in 2013, with many individuals posing while performing the quenelle in photos posted to the internet.^[85]

Dieudonné claims that the gesture is an anti-establishment protest. Officially, French authorities have said the gesture is too vague to take any action against Dieudonné.^[86] In December 2013, the French Minister for Sport Valérie Fourneyron publicly criticised the footballer Nicholas Anelka for using the gesture as a goal celebration in an English Premier League match.^[87] French international and NBA basketball player Tony Parker also came under fire during the same time period for his use of the gesture.^[88]

On 30 December 2013, Parker apologized for making the gesture, saying that the photograph had been taken three years earlier and that he had been unaware at the time that it had any anti-Semitic connotation.^[89]

An official January 2014 circular issued by Interior Minister Manuel Valls besides laying out a legal justification for banning antisemitic performances by Dieudonné also specifically linked the quenelle gesture to antisemitism and extremism.^[76]

Court actions[edit]

• On 14 June 2006, Dieudonné was sentenced to a penalty of €4,500 for defamation after having called a prominent Jewish television presenter a “secret donor of the child-murdering Israeli army”.^[90]
• On 15 November 2007, an appellate court sentenced him to a €5,000 fine because he had characterized “the Jews” as “slave traders” after being attacked in le Théâtre de la Main d’Or.^[91]
• On 26 June 2008, he was sentenced in the highest judicial instance to a €7,000 fine for his characterization of Holocaust commemorations as “memorial pornography”.^[37]
• On 27 February 2009, he was ordered to pay 75,000 Canadian dollars in Montreal to singer and actor Patrick Bruel for defamatory statements. He had called Bruel a “liar” and an “Israeli soldier”.^[92]
• On 26 March 2009, Dieudonné was fined €1,000 and ordered to pay €2,000 in damages for having defamed Elisabeth Schemla, a Jewish journalist who ran the now-defunct 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”.^[93]
• On 27 October 2009, he was sentenced to a fine of €10,000 for “public insult of people of Jewish faith or origin” related to his show with Robert Faurisson.^[94]
• On 8 June 2010, he was sentenced to a fine of €10,000 for defamation towards the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, which he had called “a mafia-like association that organizes censorship”.^[95]
• On 10 October 2012, he was fined €887,135 for tax evasion. According to the French revenue service, Dieudonné failed to pay part of his taxes from 1997 to 2009.^{[citation needed]}.

Publications[edit]

• Lettres d’insulte, illustrations by Tignous, Le Cherche-midi, 2002, (ISBN 2862747971)
• Peut-on tout dire?, Interviews conducted by Philippe Gavi and Robert Ménard, in parallel with Bruno Gaccio, Editions Mordicus, 2010, (ISBN 978-2-918414-00-1)

Bibliography[edit]

Books

• Anne-Sophie Mercier, La vérité sur Dieudonné, Plon, 2005; reissued in 2009 as Dieudonné démasqué, Seuil.
• Olivier Mukuna, Dieudonné. Entretien à cœur ouvert, Éditions EPO, 2004