Populist French Senator Stéphane Ravier faces a criminal trial after publishing a tweet in January of last year in which he stated that “immigration kills the youth of France.”

Ravier, a former member of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) who joined political pundit and writer Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest party last year, faces trial on March 9th in the criminal court of Marseilles on charges of incitement to discrimination, hatred, or violence.

The case revolves around a tweet published by Ravier on January 11th of 2022, in which he reacted to the murder of a teen in Paris by a 62-year-old man from the African nation of Senegal saying: “Theo, 18 years old, murdered yesterday by a Senegalese [migrant]… Immigration kills the youth of France,” La Provence reports.

A complaint over the tweet was made by the “anti-hate” group the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) and the League for Human Rights (LDH) against Ravier over allegations of spreading hatred toward migrants.

Alain Lothe, a civil party in the case, also alleged that by publishing his tweet “the elected official is not content to react to a news event but wants to highlight the nationality of its author and to involve all people from immigrant backgrounds.”

Last year, Ravier had been convicted for another comment made against a female socialist senator that was deemed to be sexist in nature and was handed a fine of 1,500 euros.

Like Ravier, Reconquest party leader Eric Zemmour has also been convicted by several courts after allegations of hate speech.

Prior to his presidential run last year, Zemmour had been convicted of hate speech offences several times. He is well-known for his fiery rhetoric on topics such as illegal immigration and radical Islam.

In November of 2021, Zemmour was on trial for hate speech after he claimed that underage illegal migrants were thieves, rapists, and murderers.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/03/05/french-senator-faces-trial-tweet-saying-immigration-kills/

>>18452400

A state attorney general is advocating for a bill some critics argue could punish outspoken conservatives as domestic extremists, KTTH's Jason Rantz reported Wednesday.

"Some conservative views, or anything [Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson] deems as 'misinformation,' are examples of 'domestic extremism,'" Rantz said.

It's the "most dangerous bill in legislative history," the Seattle radio host added.

Washington is creating a state version of the ill-fated "Ministry of Truth," according to Rantz and others who have analyzed the bill.

The controversial bill proposes the establishment of a commission on domestic violence extremism. Rep. Bill Ramos, a Democrat, sponsored the bill which would create the 13-member commission.

HB 1333 describes the duties of the proposed commission as involving efforts to "combat disinformation and misinformation" and collecting data on incidents of "domestic violent extremism," the Center Square explains.

Though DVE is not explicitly defined in the bill, Ferguson has described the term as including noncriminal activities or speech, the outlet also says.

The legislation was spawned by the Attorney General's 2022 "Domestic Terrorism" study, according to Center Square. That study warned that "effective State intervention to address these threats has the potential to implicate speech or association that may be protected by the First Amendment, or the individual right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment."

Further, the commission, though charged with examining ways to treat DVE as a public health issue through the state's Department of Health, would have only one member required to be an expert in public health.

The basic idea is to "take preemptive measures to stop actual domestic terrorist acts through community intervention."

Such "community intervention" could include, for example, compelling people identified as "extremists" to undergo counseling, according to Rantz's interpretation of comments Ferguson made in an interview with PBS in January.

When PBS host Laura Barrón-López asked Ferguson what the public health approach would look like in practice, Ferguson responded, in part:

Let's engage in prevention, of getting folks — avoiding them being radicalized in the first place. If somebody is radicalized, and wants removal, move away from that, how can we help them with counseling, for example, to get them away from that ideology?

So, looking at from a more holistic standpoint, we think, addresses prevention, addresses helping folks who've been radicalized and take a more holistic view of this to address what is a huge challenge, not just in Washington state, but all across the country.

"They say this is about violence, but it's not about violence. It's actually about speech," Rantz told host Todd Pirro on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends First" Friday.

"We already have laws on the books that very clearly address violence. What they're trying to do with this commission is create what they're calling a 'public health approach' to some of these ideologies."

Rantz went on to explain that opposing critical race theory, mask mandates, and radical gender ideology could all be seen by the commission as tied to "white supremacy."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/bob-ferguson-ministry-of-truth

>>18452464