Teen Sentenced for Islamophobic Sticker Campaign in Orléans, Sparking Hate Speech Debate

The verdict was handed down on Thursday. The Orléans Criminal Court sentenced a 19-year-old man to six months in prison, with a two-year probationary suspension and provisional execution, as well as several obligations, including care, work and the completion of seventy hours of community service. He is prohibited from carrying a weapon. He was also fined 200 euros. The court also ordered him to compensate the civil parties, including SOS Racisme, the Licra and the Ligue des droits de l’homme. The young man is accused of having posted Islamophobic stickers in the streets and on the university campus of the city, reports Le Monde.

While the public prosecutor had requested twelve months in prison with two years of probationary suspension, due to "the seriousness of the facts", accompanied by various obligations, the court recognized the impairment of the defendant’s discernment at the time of the facts. In the dock, the defendant expressed some "regrets", "not without confusion". He claims to have acted out of "stupid provocation" towards the "antifas". His arrest took place on May 23. During his police custody, he admitted to having bought and affixed these hateful stickers himself, during the night of May 11 to 12, 2025, in various streets and at the University of Orléans.

The investigators reported that some of these stickers bore the symbol of the "Puaud brigade", named after Edgar Puaud, a former French soldier who commanded the SS Charlemagne division. They also discovered that the young man was wearing a t-shirt with a symbol used "by the SS organizations of the Nazi regime". "In posting these stickers, I was not glorifying Nazism, I was doing it out of provocation," the defendant repeated. He acknowledged that these were serious and illegal statements, but that he thought they would be peeled off without anyone noticing. He also confided that he had been harassed in middle school and high school.