Guillaume Meurice will publish a book after his controversial joke about Benjamin Netanyahu

On October 29, 2023, in a sketch on France Inter, comedian Guillaume Meurice suggested for Halloween a “disguise” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “a sort of Nazi but without a foreskin”. A statement which sparked numerous protests among listeners.

After a complaint from the European Jewish Organization, a judicial investigation was opened for incitement to hatred and aggravated public insult. Guillaume Meurice was interviewed, free, by the judicial police on November 21. His employer had sent him a “warning”. And the audiovisual regulator, Arcom, had sent a written warning to Radio France.

If the question of the dismissal of Guillaume Meurice arose, the management of Radio France would not really have had a choice. According to information from Le Figaro, the comedian had benefited from the status of protected employee for several months. On November 13 in C à vous sur France, the CEO of radio France Sibyle Veil commented on the comments of her columnist. “I think humor is a complicated exercise. Carrying out caricatures is always within a certain limit. You never know when you might cross the red line or not. On the other hand, I think that when we have crossed it, we must have the responsibility to recognize it,” she said before adding: “If I sanctioned it it is because it made me made me very uncomfortable and angry. Because I know the remarkable in-depth work that is being done by France Inter and all the other Radio France channels on the very painful episodes that we are currently experiencing. In periods where there is such remarkable and fine treatment which is made of news which is dramatic, which is strong, we must be responsible. This is what led me to take action.”

In response to this warning, the Radio France employee countersued in court. “I made no mistake and I was only doing my job. I consider this to be an injustice, so I am appealing to justice,” declared Guillaume Meurice.

The comedian becomes a regular at controversial outings. In 2022, he had already had to give up, with Nathalie Gendrot, publishing a book with Le Robert which contained a joke about the billionaire Vincent Bolloré. And for good reason, Le Robert is a subsidiary of Editis and therefore of Vivendi, which belongs to Vincent Bolloré. The publisher Flammarion therefore jumped at the opportunity to publish the book which was published in March 2023.

This time, his story In the Ear of the Cyclone - which recounts the media storm caused by his controversial joke about Netanyahu - is due to be published by Editions du Seuil on March 15. “In this document, a logbook of a media storm, Guillaume Meurice tells how controversies are made and undone. The result is a text, funny and disturbing, on political humor,” indicates the publisher in its publication program.