Last year (13 November 2013) French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira was subject to several attacks including one slur by the right-wing magazine Minute, which put her on the cover with slogan ‘clever as a monkey’ and used the subtitle ‘Taubira retrouve la banane’ (Taubira finds her banana; banana also means ‘smile’). The Franco-Caribbean politician was also depicted as the face of “Banania”—a brand that traditionally used to use simplistic, insensitive representations of Africans. Now, the director of Minute, Jean-Marie Molitor, was fined 10,000 euros for allowing the circulation of such a crude (yes, racist) depiction.

Samuel Thomas, vice-president of the Anti-Racist Association “Maison des Potes” says that the punishment is laughable and not commensurate with the injury addressed to Taubira or with the damages it inflicts one French society as a whole. [See previous post Christiane Taubira: ELLE’s Woman of the Year.]

Shortly before the release of the ‘clever as…