A look back on Alain Soral’s trial

Last week I went to the Palais de Justice to hang out and catch a couple of  hearings and immediate trials. I was surprised to find a really long waiting line just to enter the Palais. I did remember quickly what brought such a crowd though. Alain Soral was being judged this day for doing “quenelle” gesture in front of the Shoah Memorial in Berlin, a couple years ago.

The famous photograph, posted a couple years ago on Alain Soral’s private facebook

The case was judged in front of the criminal court last Thursday. Accused by UEJF, a jewish student association, and “J’accuse”, an association that fights antisemitism, Alain Soral had to face Shoah survivors inside the 17th chamber of the court. What the judge really had to decide, is whether or not the quenelle is an antisemitic gesture. At least that’s what the two complainants want them to do.

I didn’t manage to get in, the court was bursting with people. Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, inventor of the quenelle was also there, to defend what he calls an “anti-system” gesture.