LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
In 2021 and in the midst of a debate on the health pass, Emmanuel Macron had filed a complaint against the author of satirical posters where Emmanuel Macron and the German dictator were one.
JUSTICE – ” The posters complained of did not exceed the permissible limits of freedom of expression”. The Court of Cassation decided to annul this Tuesday, December 13 the conviction of a poster from Var who had published posters representing President Emmanuel Macron as Adolf Hitler.
Michel-Ange Flori, 62, a former advertiser, had been convicted at first instance and on appeal for “public insults” to the President of the Republic, who had lodged a complaint after the publication by this entrepreneur of two posters in La Seyne-sur-Mer (Var) and in Toulon, in 2021 in the midst of a debate on the health pass.
In January 2022, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal sentenced him to a fine of 5,000 euros and he appealed in cassation. On the first targeted poster, revealed on July 19, 2021, Emmanuel Macron was represented as Adolf Hitler, with a small mustache and Nazi uniform, with this slogan: “Obey, get vaccinated”.
A month later, when an investigation had been opened for Hitler’s poster, Michel-Ange Flori had published another poster where Emmanuel Macron appeared alongside the Marshal Petaindressed and wearing the same kepi, on a QR code background, with this message: “There is only one pass to cross”.
” Keep writing on the walls »
In its judgment dated Tuesday, which AFP was able to consult, the highest French court considered “that the posters in question did not exceed the permissible limits of freedom of expression”the display having in particular affixed a mention indicating the satirical character on one of the posters.
“The author has placed himself in a satirical mode resulting, for the first poster, from the mention ‘satirical and parodic display’ and, for the second, from the play on words ‘there is only one pass to cross ‘”adds the Court of Cassation.
Furthermore “the photomontages in question, however outrageous they were vis-à-vis the current President of the Republic, were part of the debate of general interest and the controversy which developed about the vaccination pass against the Covid virus », continues the Court. Consequently, it quashed and canceled the conviction of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal.
On Twitter, the former advertiser was content to rejoice in this decision by declaring: “ The Court of Cassation canceled today by a historic judgment in the matter of freedom of expression the sentences which had been imposed on me in Toulon and before the Court of Appeal of Aix en Provence”. The one who pleaded for the right to parody », also promised that these posters would not be the last : “President Macron is therefore dismissed, I can continue to write on the walls”.
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The conviction of this Varois for his posters of Macron represented as Hitler canceled