July 4, 2006: Dieudonné Mbala Mbala in Quebec

Comic France shuns as anti-semitic is a hit in Quebec Graeme Hamilton, National Post, June 29, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6b500b60-a4b8-4d27-9ca8-b8472b5a7ff1&k=27897

[....] Dieudonne's increasingly virulent attacks on Israel and Jewish lobby groups have made him something of a pariah in his native France. Former colleagues have accused him of anti-Semitism, and last March a French court convicted him of "incitement to racial hatred" for saying that his Jewish critics were "slave traders, who had converted to banking, show business and, today, terrorist action." Mainstream venues have shunned him and he is reduced to performing in his own theatre.

But in Quebec, he is viewed as simply controversial, and his shows are hugely popular. The French-language side of the Just for Laughs festival has booked his one-man show for 10 nights at Theatre du Nouveau Monde, running until July 5, and he will co-host two large gala concerts later in the month. [....]

Dieudonne Mbala Mbala, born in France in 1966, insists he is not an anti-Semite. "I am anti-Zionist and I oppose the power of the Zionist lobby in France," he told the British newspaper The Independent this year. [....]

The following year he provoked outrage when he appeared on a French television show dressed in orthodox Jewish garb, made a Nazi salute and shouted, "Isra-Heil!" This year he announced his candidacy for next year's French presidential elections, and his first move was to accuse the French Jewish association CRIF of setting the government agenda. [....]

On French CBC Radio? ... Booked for a comedy festival? ... Just for Laughs?