Anelka risks sanctions over salute outrage

AFP/Paris

The 34-year-old, whose career has been marred by tantrums and controversial remarks, was again in the firing line for making the so-called “quenelle” gesture popularised by French comedian Dieudonne, known for his anti-Jewish comments.

Anelka, who converted to Islam in 2004, had thrust his straightened right arm downwards while tapping his bicep with the other hand after scoring on Saturday in a game between his West Bromwich Albion team and West Ham United.

The gesture, which Dieudonne claims only reflects his anti-establishment views, is widely interpreted as a Nazi-style action in France.

England’s Football Association told AFP yesterday that it would investigate the incident to determine if Anelka should be punished. 

He could face a minimum five-ban match under a new anti-discriminatory disciplinary measures introduced in May. The salute, which Anelka on Twitter defended as just a “special dedication to my comedian friend Dieudonne,” has been widely condemned in France.

French Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron on Saturday called it a “shocking, sickening provocation” and said there was “no place for anti-Semitism and inciting hatred on the football pitch”.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls is considering whether to ban all public appearances by Dieudonne. Valls said Dieudonne was “no longer a comedian” but was rather an “anti-Semite and racist” who fell afoul of national laws against incitement to racial hatred.

The latest to join the chorus of condemnation was the head imam of the Great Mosque of Paris who said yesterday that he “strongly condemned any act or words of an anti-Semitic or racist nature in the sporting world.”

Dalil Boubakeur said the “quenelle” was a “hybrid gesture between a Nazi salute and an inverted ‘up yours’ sign.”

He said sports should represent “the highly humanist and universal values of peace, friendliness and fraternity.”

The Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) also attacked Anelka’s “cowardly support” for Dieudonne, whose full name is Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala.

‘Bravo to Anelka’

The comedian at the heart of the controversy meanwhile thanked Anelka in a tweet yesterday, saying “Bravo to Anelka for his ‘quenelle’. Magnificent!!”

But he added that the quenelle was “not an anti-Semitic or Nazi sign.”

Dieudonne has been fined seven times for defamation, insult and provocation to hate, and for racial discrimination. He has made several distasteful remarks, made “Heil” like signs on television as part of a sketch, called the remembrance of the Holocaust “memorial pornography” and evoked the gas chambers while referring to a Jewish radio journalist.

Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the far-right, said in the Journal Du Dimanche Sunday newspaper that the quenelle was for some simply an “anti-establishment gesture” and for others “an anti-establishment gesture against a Jewish plot.”

Dieudonne first used the “quenelle” publicly in 2009 while campaigning in the European elections. Since then it has become his trademark and has been widely reproduced on the Internet and social media, at venues ranging from the Asterix theme park to the exterior of a synagogue.

The European Jewish Congress has also criticised Anelka and called for him to face the same punishment that would be handed down for a Nazi salute.

“It is sickening that such a well-known footballer would make such an abusive and hateful gesture in front of tens of thousands of spectators,” European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor said.

“There should be no room for such intolerance and racism in sports and we expect that the English Premier League officials as well as the police will give Anelka the appropriate punishment.”