Quasi-Nazi salute popular in France

[Behind the Aegis]

27. More about the orginator of this new salute.

A French Jester Who Trades in Hate

THE stand-up comedian and actor Dieudonné used to draw thousands of ecstatic fans to his shows. Famous for his portrayal of an imposing, slightly boorish West African immigrant who spoke an old-fashioned, lilting French while gently mocking a shorter, agitated pal, he has played roles as varied as a nostalgic Vichy-era collaborator, a corrupt garage owner and a gay butcher.

But Dieudonné’s career has gone off the rails. After lashing out at Jews, playing down the importance of the Holocaust in shows and interviews, and becoming politically active in the name of what he calls anti-Zionism, he has become a pariah in France. Today he struggles to sell tickets to his stand-up appearances — held in cramped theaters, on a makeshift stage opposite a farm and even on a bus — and has broken off with the Jewish comic Élie Sémoun, who played his pal in a popular comedy team. Yet there was Dieudonné in the spotlight last month, his humor the focus of headlines worldwide when a screening of his directorial debut, “L’Antisémite” (“The Anti-Semite”), was canceled at the Marché du Film, the market held at the Cannes Film Festival. (There are no plans to release it in France or the United States.) Just weeks earlier four performances he was scheduled to give in Montreal were called off after Jewish groups protested.

“There are official versions of history which are indisputable in France,” Dieudonné told a young, mostly male audience in his last show here, “Rendez-nous Jésus,” or “Give Us Jesus Back.” “Take the gas chambers. Is someone going to ask, ‘Can we see the plans?’ ”

Dieudonné (pronounced DYUH-do-NAY), 47, argues that he is playing a vital role in a complacent and racist French society. “I’ve been able to laugh at everything except Jews,” he said in an interview this month. “I realized that it was forbidden to laugh about them.”

His appetite for what he describes as “humorous attacks” seems insatiable in a country where freedom of expression is a fundamental right but encouraging racial discrimination and denying an officially recognized genocide is a crime.

“I am the king’s jester,” Dieudonné said. “And the jester is the one who puts his finger on certain truths that the court doesn’t want to hear.”

more...

From his "comedy" act...

The opening 2-minute skit of the film consists of a Chaplanesque newsreel narration set during the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. The quivering, grabby hand of a pinstriped inmate extends out from behind barbed wire as the emaciated survivor jostles with a fleshy cigar-smoking capo for attention from the camera. Dieudonné arrives dressed as an American sergeant and throws scraps of food at the beggar, commanding him with a hearty laugh and flash cards to “Mange! Bouffe!” (“Eat! Grub!”) The prisoner then reveals the existence of the gas chambers to Dieudonné. As a kitten laps up liquid from a Zyklon B canister, Dieudonné sniffs at the canister suspiciously and then dabs some on his neck like cologne. Together they sift through the ashes of a barbecue pit. “Chicken?” the skeptical Dieudonné asks. “No, those are children’s bones,” the prisoner tells him. Dieudonné proceeds to sit on a leather chair only to be yelled at by the prisoner “for sitting on my grandmother!” He picks up a chandelier and asks if it too was made of Jewish skin. “Bien sûr,” replies the prisoner before Dieudonné plops it over his head and electrifies him as if in a cartoon. The film also features guest appearances by the aged Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson and ghastly National Front ideological guru Alain Soral.

source