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Culture

France: Right-wing Satirist Causes a Stir

January 21, 2014

In France, an anti-Semitic comic and actor who goes by the name of Dieudonné is raising hackles.

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Frankreich Komiker Dieudonne Mbala Mbala
Image: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this month French Interior Minister Manuel Valls advised city mayors to ban the satirist’s shows and some have already done so. Valls insists that Dieudonné is "no longer a comedian" but is instead an "anti-Semite and a racist". The satirist is said to have contacts to right-wing extremists and Holocaust deniers. He's also credited with inventing the quenelle, a gesture that's been called a reverse Nazi salute. Dieudonné, however, claims that the quenelle is simply a form of anti-establishment protest.