#JeSuisCharlie 2009: Bastion of liberté, Charlie Hebdo fired artist for 'antisemitic' cartoon

French cartoonist Sine on trial on charges of anti-Semitism over Sarkozy jibe 

A Left-wing cartoonist is to go on trial on Tuesday on charges of anti-Semitism for suggesting Jean Sarkozy, the son of the French president, was converting to Judaism for financial reasons. 

By Henry Samuel in Paris 

6:00AM GMT 27 Jan 2009

Maurice Sinet, 80, who works under the pen name Sine, faces charges of "inciting racial hatred" for a column he wrote last July in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The piece sparked a summer slanging match among the Parisian intelligentsia and ended in his dismissal from the magazine.

"L'affaire Sine" followed the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 22, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain. Commenting on an unfounded rumour that the president's son planned to convert to Judaism, Sine quipped: "He'll go a long way in life, that little lad."

A high-profile political commentator slammed the column as linking prejudice about Jews and social success. Charlie Hebdo's editor, Philippe Val, asked Sinet to apologise but he refused, exclaiming: "I'd rather cut my balls off."

Mr Val's decision to fire Sine was backed by a group of eminent intellectuals, including the [Judaic fomenter of Islamic terror] Bernard-Henry Lévy, but parts of the libertarian Left defended him, citing the right to free speech.

Last week, the anti-capitalist, anti-clerical Sine, who recently founded his own weekly magazine, Sine Hebdo, took Claude Askolovitch, the journalist who first accused him of anti-Semitism, to court for slander in a separate case.

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Sine is the defendant in Tuesday's court case in Lyon, southern France. The plaintiff is the anti-racism and anti-Semitism group, Licra.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4351672/French-cartoonist-Sine-on-trial-on-charges-of-anti-Semitism-over-Sarkozy-jibe.html