A sentence of imprisonment was necessary Tuesday before the correctional court of Nanterre against Jean-Marie Le Pen for having, by campaign posters, incited hatred against the Muslim population and people of Algerian origin.
The prosecutor, Yvon Tallec, has left it to the fourteenth chamber, captured on direct quotation by the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), determine the quantum of sentence and the amount a fine.
The poster in question was a fully veiled woman beside a map of France covered the Algerian flag on which rose the minarets shaped missiles, with the title "No to Islam".
In the last regional elections in February 2010, the movement "Youth" National Front had released the posters in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur and on its website and then across France.
At the time, the case had sparked protests from Algeria.
In early December, the Paris court had exonerated Jean-Marie Le Pen, prosecuted for the same actions by the League against Racism and Antisemitism and SOS Racisme, without addressing the merits of the case, dismissing the two associations pure questions of form.
At the hearing in Nanterre, MRAP's lawyer, Khaled Lasbeur, produced a video of a speech on 7 March 2010 in which Jean-Marie Le Pen "claims authorship of the poster, thereby constituting the offense of incitement to hatred, "the prosecutor.
For his part, counsel for the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Mr. Wallerand de Saint Just, said that the poster in question said: "No to Islam" and not Islam.
On the speech of Jean-Marie Le Pen, his lawyer conceded that his client justified the poster, but it does not prove that it "was the author, editor of internet sites who posted the sign, printer or Gluer these posters. "
"This is a baseless accusation that Mr. Le Pen.A politician has the right to say that Islamism is a danger for France! "Said Mr. Wallerand St. Just.
The decision was taken under advisement on April 5.
