Despotic French Government Criminalizes Speech

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France:
https://jonathanturley.org/2012/10/14/the-death-of-free-speech/
https://jonathanturley.org/2008/06/04/brigitte-bardot-convicted-of-hate-speech-and-discrimination/
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/09/23/je-suis-une-bombe-family-criminally-convicted-for-sending-3-year-old-son-jihad-to-school-with-t-shirt-reading-i-am-a-bomb/
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/16/twitter-caves-to-demand-of-french-jewish-students-to-reveal-identifies-of-posters/
https://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/19/french-magazine-runs-cartoon-of-mohammad-in-the-face-of-governments-warning-about-provocation/
https://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/24/french-senate-makes-denying-armenian-genocide-a-crime/
https://jonathanturley.org/2018/09/20/le-pen-ordered-into-psychiatric-evaluation-for-tweets-in-france/
https://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/08/galliano-found-guilty-of-anti-semitic-comments/

The latest such case is a criminal trial of French Senator Stéphane Ravier for stating that “immigration kills the youth of France.”

It is another example of why free speech is in a virtual free fall in Europe.

Ravier faces trial tomorrow in the criminal court of Marseilles on charges of incitement to discrimination, hatred, or violence. The case is based on a tweet, on January 11, 2022, in which Ravier reacted to the murder of a teen in Paris by a 62-year-old man from Senegal.