French Magazine Sparks Outrage with Racist Depiction of Black Lawmaker as Slave

On Twitter, many French personalities expressed their outrage on Saturday. For Prime Minister Jean Castex, it is a "revolting publication". He assured the deputy Danièle Obono (LFI) of the government’s support. The Elysée said the French president had called the elected official to show his support.

"Racism is a harmful evil. It destroys. It is an offense," commented the Deputy Minister for the City, Nadia Hai. "We are free to write a nauseating novel, within the limits set by the law. We are also free to hate it. I hate it and am (on the side) of the parliamentarian," wrote the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti.

On Friday, the deputy mentioned an "extreme right, odious, stupid and cruel. In short, equal to itself". Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of LFI, denounced a "nauseating harassment". "Political struggle does not justify this type of humiliating and hurtful representation of an elected official of the Republic," reacted a leader of the far-right party Rassemblement national, Wallerand de Saint-Just. For him, the publication is "of absolute bad taste".

Faced with the controversy, the opinion magazine tries to justify its publication and is full of apologies. "This is a fiction depicting the horrors of slavery organized by Africans in the 18th century", "a terrible truth that the indigenists do not want to see", it is explained. "We understand, with the extremely violent symbolic charge of this image, that Danielle Obono is shocked. We apologize to her personally," said Tugdual Denis, deputy editor-in-chief of Valeurs actuelles, on BFMTV.

"If I had her in front of me today, I would tell her I’m sorry, I’m sorry I hurt you," he added, stating that the goal was "to make a fiction, certainly complex, certainly far-fetched, perhaps ill-advised, perhaps uncomfortable, but never malicious and never mean." His magazine, he will assure, is "not racist".