Eric Zemmour: Far-right candidate found guilty of hate speech

Reacting to the verdict on social media, Zemmour complained that his freedom of speech was being restricted, and said there was an "urgent need to drive ideology out of the courts".

They are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that's all they are.

They must be sent back and they must not even come.".

At his trial in November last year, which Zemmour did not attend, prosecutors argued that his comments were "contemptuous" and "outrageous", and that "the limits of freedom of expression have been crossed".

For several weeks last year, polls suggested that he could come second in April's presidential election in France, facing a run-off with current President Emmanuel Macron.

He has admitted that he could struggle to get enough backing, complaining that the system is biased against political outsiders.

Over the years he's had a dozen run-ins with the law - some of which he's won, some lost - and his argument about being persecuted by a left-wing justice system is by now well oiled.

Essentially he says that publicly funded anti-racist groups help to frame "hate speech" laws, and then trigger criminal investigations against people they believe to have breached them.

So for Zemmour, being convicted is merely more proof of his original point, that people who speak inconvenient truths about crime are silenced?

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