This January 7 in Angers (Maine-et-Loire), the SMS falls at 8:15 p.m. “URGENT: following the measures Covid-19 your session is POSTPONED to a later date. More info soon. Thank you for your understanding. »Dieudonné M’bala M’Bala’s show should have started a quarter of an hour ago. And the appointment is “non-refundable”, we read in small print on the general conditions of sale of the ticket. We will learn, a week later and still by SMS, that it is postponed to April 22. The spectators had however received, the day before the show, a confirmation e-mail. But on D-Day, no more news, before this late cancellation.
Bordeaux, Rennes, Nice, Metz, Chartres… In two months, between October 23 and December 23, none of the 21 performances announced by Dieudonné took place, according to our verifications. And for good reason. In the context of confinement or curfew, the actor would have risked police custody for a rally, indicates a police source. Would the fear of the gendarme have prompted him to temporarily suspend his “lives”? In any case, the actor is careful not to inform his fans … and to reimburse the naive who buy his tickets, still on sale now, at prices ranging from 9.90 euros (the “flash sale price”) to 34 euros.
To his followers, who follow him on an encrypted messaging since YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok banned him from their platforms this summer, Dieudonné explained, Monday January 25: “I have to hide”; “I am beyond the reach of our enemies”. Excitement among the fans! It must be said that his followers are hardly used to seeing their idol go green …
Wild shows organized this fall
While the entertainment world has been at a standstill since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the self-proclaimed “historic canal yellow vest” has not stopped his tour in 2020, proudly announced “in 100 cities in France” . Or rather, in the distant outskirts of these municipalities, in car parks or in sheds discreetly rented to individuals. Because it has been a long time since theaters no longer welcome the convicted offender, regularly convicted of racist and anti-Semitic remarks, who in 2009 had brought on the stage of the Zenith in Paris the negationist Robert Faurisson, welcomed by an extra disguised as a deportee.
On October 18, 150 spectators cheered for him in a car park in the Plan de Campagne shopping area, near Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). On the 16th, he was in the farmyard of a farmer living in Bona (Nièvre), 25 km east of Nevers. Familiar land: in April 2019, the operator had already opened his property to him, to the chagrin of the mayor, Marc Gauthier. At the strokes of 8:30 p.m. this Friday evening of autumn, the elected representative sees cars parading on the narrow municipal road arriving from hundreds of kilometers around: from the Nièvre, the Allier, the Aube, the Loiret . Behind the steering wheels, around 150 spectators, “people like you and me … young people, others in their 60s”, relates the elected official, still amazed. The gendarmes, arrived on site, convinced the organizer to play outdoors, rather than indoors where the sanitary rules of distancing would not have been respected.
A week before, on the 10th, the show was held in the premises of a company in Geispolsheim, in the suburbs of Strasbourg. And on the 9th, in a disused sawmill in Favières (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Pray, in these spartan conditions, to bring your chair! Thus, the inhabitants of Favières taken aback saw dozens of strangers arriving in the streets “with a chair under their arm,” says a local resident. In the room, according to statements made the same evening by the mayor of the town, “less than half” of the “300 to 400 spectators” wore a mask. “It’s still curious that demonstrations like these cannot be banned or regulated: we don’t understand anything! », Plague the mayor of Bona.
Often, the police are confronted with a fait accompli: the location of the show is only given to fans a few hours in advance, “as in free parties”, compares a policeman. The comedian also takes advantage of a legal loophole: the fact that health rules are trampled on is not enough to prosecute the organizers for endangering the lives of others. “It would be necessary, according to certain jurists, to establish that in the public there was indeed a contaminated person to make certain the danger”, explains the prosecutor of Nancy, François Perain.
On sale, videos, cryptocurrency and rabbit skins
How many followers or curious have they let themselves be taken by the real-false shows? Neither the actor nor his “customer service” respond. In any case, the ticket office is not the only business still open in the “goddosphere”. Almost every day, the polemicist publishes a video, a sort of conspiratorial preaching embellished with repetitive imitations, accessible by subscription – 15 euros per quarter. The shop also offers t-shirts, fabric masks crossed out with the inscription “Ferme la!” Physically! »Or – house specialty – rabbit skins signed by the artist. At the start of the first confinement, he also launched into the promotion of surgical masks, while their sale was prohibited at the time. The price of the paper protection can make you cough: 1.20 euro per unit.
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But the big business of the moment is called the Sestrel. Almost not a day goes by that Dieudonné does not promise wonders to those who invest in this “politico-speculative” cryptocurrency that he supports, a year after its launch. ” It’s time! It moves! After, it will be too late! »He repeats, street-style in his videos.
Riding the wave of Bitcoin or Ether, these virtual currencies still little controlled, Dieudonné praises these tokens, presented as “the Franc 2.0”, “the phase 2 of the yellow vests”, “the sword of our freedom of expression “. That is to say? We do not know. The affair remains nebulous, concerning both its functioning and the identity of those who initiated it.
“It’s a front project: Sestrel has no technological or economic interest,” says Simon Polrot, president of the Adan association, which brings together French economic players in cryptocurrencies. The tool was created in a few hours, and does nothing. It is therefore a danger for those who choose to invest in it. However, some have obviously taken the risk: according to a survey by Capital magazine, the fundraising of Sestrel would have reached 40,000 euros this summer.
The former car salesman, who took to the stage after his meeting with Élie Semoun in the 1990s, is not his first attempt to grow products… very derived. In 2016, he promised to shake up the banks, by launching his “ananassurance” and a “ananacredit”. The structure that oversaw everything, in liquidation, was canceled on January 6.
Loss of hearing on the platforms and legal risk
“Dieudonné has generated hundreds of thousands of euros on the basis of hatred,” said lawyer David Olivier Kaminsky, president of the League against racism and anti-Semitism (Licra) of Paris, who has pleaded in many cases against the ex-comedian, and filed against him the first complaint for organized insolvency. “They say he earns a lot of money, but it should not be a piece of cake for him at the moment, as for all artists,” defends his lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre who, in recent weeks, negotiated for his client the takeover of a failed Parisian theater, The Italian Comedy. The project seems on the verge of collapse and Dieudonné, expelled from his stronghold of the Gold Hand in 2017, still only has his “dieudobus” to shoot.
Its eviction this summer from mainstream platforms like Facebook and YouTube was also a blow to its publicity. He cut himself, in six months, of three quarters of his audience on social networks. Its video site, in December, had only 60,000 views, compared to 240,000 in July.
Finally, his appeal for tax evasion, abuse of corporate assets, money laundering and organized insolvency, scheduled for February 1 to 9, could make him lose feathers. At first instance, he was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were closed, and a fine of 200,000 euros. According to our information, the hearing on Monday could be postponed: his defense evoked “health reasons”.
Contacted several times, since January 25, Dieudonné has not responded to our requests for interviews. His lawyer in the tax evasion trial, David de Stefano, did not respond to our requests either.
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