“This dirty nigger deserves to take a hundred lashes and be sold in Libya”. For having published this tweet towards Kylian Mbappé, a 19-year-old young man was sentenced to a suspended fine of 2,000 euros.
Six months in prison had been requested in June. Student, Karim C. risked up to a year in prison for this tweet published under a pseudonym, via an account illustrated by the portrait of a third party. This student, absent at the delivery of the decision as well as at the trial on June 1, was also found guilty of incitement to racial hatred and identity theft for having published the disputed tweet via an account using a false name and another user’s photo.
On June 28, 2021, the elimination of the French football team from the Euro against Switzerland led to a wave of hateful attacks on social networks.
The Pharos platform had been alerted in the following days for messages targeting several players from the France team and an investigation had been opened. Among them, a tweet from June 29, 2021, widely relayed and commented on, targeted Kylian Mbappé, whose missed shot on goal had caused the defeat. Kylian Mbappé had filed a complaint.
“Copy-pasted” discussions with far-right Internet users
Identified as the author of the message, Karim C., a young adult who still lives with his parents in the Paris region and with a clean record, had created a Twitter account at the beginning of June 2021, using the codes of extreme accounts right. His phones and computers revealed a number of racist jokes with his friends, particularly directed at black African people.
Arrested in April 2022 and placed in police custody, he admitted to being the author of the tweet, but affirmed that he had “played a role” in creating this account, by making “copy-pasted” of private discussions with far-right Internet users to “not spread hatred, but to make people react”.
A defense strategy swept away by the prosecutor, who described it as “disturbing”. She pointed out that other authors of tweets had been found but their messages did not, according to her, “constitute a criminal offense”.
“Alone in his room, he watches the match and with his mobile phone he will go wild with raw, racist messages”, estimated the council of SOS Racisme, Guillaume Traynard. “You have a case symptomatic of the social media sounding board today, and of the supposed impunity that reigns there,” added the lawyer.