Complaint lodged over broadcaster’s ‘xenophobic raving’ against Chechens, Roma, Africans

French anti-racist campaigners are up in arms after a controversial broadcaster claimed that “gangs of Chechens, Roma, Kosovars, Maghrebins and Africans” are wreaking havoc across France.

Controversial broadcaster Eric Zemmour AFP

The umbrella group of French black organisations, Cran, has reported radio commentator Eric Zemmour to the national broadcasting authority over the comments, made on private radio station RTL, claiming that they are an “implicit call for ethnic cleansing”.

Contemporary France, “deprived of the protection of its old borders”, is subject to “raids and pillage”, Zemmour declared in a broadcast on Tuesday.

“The great invasions that followed the fall of the Roman empire have been replaced by gangs of Chechens, Roma, Kosovars, Maghrebins and Africans, who rob, assault and pillage,” he told his listeners.

“Only homogenous societies like Japan, which have for a long time said no to mass immigration and protected their natural barriers … have escaped this street violence,” he asserted.

Accusing Zemmour of “xenophobic raving”, Cran president Louis-Georges Tin called on RTL to “assess the gravity” of his statements.

“To hear Eric Zemmour, you’d think was plunged into a sort of mediaeval nightmare today, devastated by hordes of foreigners, who are inevitably thieves and criminals,” he commented.

Zemmour, who has a loyal fan base, frequently angers anti-racists and left-wingers and in 2011 was found guilty of incitement to racial hatred for statements in a television broadcast.

RTL has so far not commented on the latest row.