Laurent Louis | |
---|---|
Member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for Walloon Brabant | |
In office 13 June 2010 –25 May 2014 | |
Monarchs | Albert II Philippe |
Personal details | |
Born | Nivelles,Belgium | 29 February 1980
Political party | Debout Les Belges! People's Party (before 2011) ISLAM (2013) |
Laurent Louis (born 29 February 1980) is a French-speaking Belgian politician,former member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives,and a Holocaust denier. [1] [2] He is known for antisemitic speeches and actions,Holocaust denial,and for spreading rumors about other public figures. [3] [4] [5]
On 17 June 2014,Louis received a suspended sentence of 8 months in prison for slander relating to accusations of pedophilia he had made against public figures. [6] In 2015,he was convicted of breaking the 1995 Belgian law against Holocaust denial.
Louis began his parliamentary career as a member of the conservative People's Party,led by Belgian Jewish politician Mischaël Modrikamen,from which he was expelled after a few months in office. [7] In 2011 he created a new political party,the Movement for Liberty and Democracy (Mouvement pour la libertéet la démocratie),which he dissolved in January 2013 and began advocating the dissolution of all political parties. [8]
He then joined the Islamist Belgian party ISLAM. He soon had a falling out with them although he continued to claim to be the party's president, [9] with a spokesman for the party noting,"We had been warned that he was not a stable person,but had decided to give him a chance." [10]
In late 2013,Louis founded a movement called Belgians,Rise Up! ( Debout Les Belges! ). As of April 2014,it was said to be riven by internal conflict, [11] and after the May 2014 Belgian federal elections,Louis announced that he was dissolving his party,which had received less than 1% of votes [12] and would thus not receive any seat either at the federal or regional levels. [13]
After accusing several prominent figures of pedophilia,a 2012 editorial in Le Vif accused Louis in turn of using anti-pedophile activism in order to promote himself. [14] On 27 March 2014,during a parliamentary debate on the costs of the visit of the US President,Louis ended a speech by accusing the Prime Minister,Elio Di Rupo,of being a pedophile:"Thank you,Mister Pedophile…er,Prime Minister,sorry!" [15] This led to the suspension of the session and the temporary withdrawal of Louis's right to speak before the chamber. [16] Louis repeated this allegation in April 2014,during judicial proceedings against him for slander; [17] he was convicted of some,but not all,of these allegations and received a suspended sentence of 8 months in prison on 17 June 2014. [6]
In 2013,Laurent Louis declared himself to be an anti-Zionist and espoused a theory alleging that the Holocaust was funded by Zionists to advance Zionism. He wrote on his Facebook profile:
Look at how Zionists financed Hitler and created the Second World War in order to further their project, the foundation of the State of Israel ... There it is, that's how Zionists have become the masters of the world. [18]
At a support rally for Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar Assad held in front of the Israeli embassy in Brussels in 2013, he stepped on the Flag of Israel and was also seen holding a Hezbollah flag and a portrait of Assad. He was quoted as saying to Syrian national TV, "Europe is being used in the conflict as a tool in the hands of Israel, the rogue state." The incident led to calls for his impeachment. [19] [20]
Louis has met several times with the French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, referring to himself as Dieudonné's "ambassador" to Belgium and performing the quenelle gesture popularized by Dieudonné (reminiscent of the Nazi salute). [21] [22] [23]
In January 2014, during discussion of current affairs in the Chamber of Representatives, he made the quenelle gesture and spoke of, "this Holocaust produced and financed, let us remember, by the founders of Zionism." The president of the chamber condemned these remarks and the "hateful" and "uncalled-for" gesture, while the Belgian League Against Antisemitism brought suit against Laurent Louis for "antisemitism and Holocaust denial." [24] [25] [26]
In Spring 2014, Laurent Louis announced that a "European Congress of Dissidence" would be held on 4 May in the Brussels-Capital region, including Dieudonné and other French figures such as Alain Soral, Kémi Seba, and the antisemitic essayist Hervé Ryssen. The demonstration – described in the press as an "antisemitic meeting" – was prohibited by Belgian authorities. The location of the meeting, kept secret until the last minute, was finally announced as Anderlecht, but the approximately 500 people who attended were dispersed by law enforcement. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]
Following the 24 May 2014 fatal shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Joel Rubinfeld of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism described the act as "the inevitable result of a climate that distills hatred... it will be necessary to use all legal means to silence the preachers of this hate who are responsible for spreading this virus of anti-Jewish hatred", specifically mentioning Laurent Louis and Dieudonné. [32]
Louis Laurent vehemently denounced Rubinfeld's accusations on his Facebook page and denying that his views were antisemitic. He suggested that the attack could be a false flag operation seeking to discredit him and his political party on the eve of the 2014 Belgian federal elections:
This villainous act is clearly being used to tarnish my image and that of Debout les Belges on the eve of the elections. ... Should we see in this a false flag aiming to reduce the success of Debout les Belges in tomorrow's elections? [33]
Louis later posted that he had received death threats and that police claimed his life was in danger. [34]
In June 2015, Louis gained a suspended 6-month sentence for breaking the 1995 Belgian law against Holocaust denial and lost his right to run for office in the next six years. [35] The charges related to comments in blog posts he wrote in June 2014 in support of Jean-Marie Le Pen, saying "Le Pen has said that the gas chambers were just a detail in World War II history and that can be shocking, but if we think about it for a moment, is that so wrong?”. [35] [36] He filed an appeal, which was unsuccessful and in 2017 was ordered by the Belgian Court of Appeal, in lieu of a sentence and fine, to visit one Nazi concentration camp a year for the next five years. [1] [2]
On 2 November 2015, Al-Manar TV reported that a delegation from Europe, which included Louis, had recently met with Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem as part of a "show of solidarity with the resistance in its fight against terrorism." During the broadcast, Louis stated that Hezbollah's "fight against terrorism constitutes a comprehensive defense of humanity, and of interfaith coexistence," while adding that "The Western leaders' collaboration with terrorism has been exposed, despite their false claims that they are protecting democracy and human rights." [37] [38]
The Catholic University of Leuven or Louvain was founded in 1834 in Mechelen as the Catholic University of Belgium, and moved its seat to the town of Leuven in 1835, changing its name to Catholic University of Leuven. In 1968, it was split into two universities, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Université catholique de Louvain, following tensions between the Dutch and French-speaking student bodies.
Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, generally known by his stage name Dieudo, is a French comedian, actor and political activist. He has been convicted for hate speech, advocating terrorism, and slander in Belgium, France and Switzerland.
The Belgian Catholic Church, also known as the Catholic Church in Belgium, is part of the global Catholic Church and is under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the curia in Rome and the Episcopal Conference of Bishops.
Debout la France is a French political party founded by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan in 1999 under the name Debout la République as the "genuine Gaullist" branch of the Rally for the Republic. It was relaunched again in 2000 and 2002 and held its inaugural congress as an autonomous party in 2008. At the 2014 congress, its name was changed to Debout la France!.
The partition of Belgium is a hypothetical situation, which has been discussed by both Belgian and international media, envisioning a split of Belgium along linguistic divisions, with the Flemish Community (Flanders) and the French-speaking Community (Wallonia) becoming independent states. Alternatively, it is hypothesized that Flanders could join the Netherlands and Wallonia could join France or Luxembourg.
The Grand Prix is an annual award presented by the Belgian Film Critics Association.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 25 May 2014. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected, whereas the Senate was no longer directly elected following the 2011–2012 state reform. These were the first elections held under King Philippe's reign.
The quenelle is a gesture created and popularized by French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala. He first used it in 2005 in his sketch entitled "1905" about French secularism, and has used it since in a wide variety of contexts. The quenelle became popular, with many photos posted to the Internet showing individuals posing while performing quenelles at mundane places.
Debout Les Belges! is a far-right political group in Belgium, founded and led by Belgian MP Laurent Louis, who was previously associated with the Islamist party ISLAM.
The Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting was an antisemitic Islamist terrorist attack which took place in Brussels, Belgium, on 24 May 2014 when a gunman opened fire at the museum, killing four people. Three of them, an Israeli couple on holiday and a French woman, died at the scene. The fourth victim, a Belgian employee of the museum, later died of his injuries in hospital. Six days after the attack, on 30 May 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national of Algerian origin, was arrested during a routine drugs check in Marseille, France, when he was found to be carrying weapons identical to those used in the shooting. A second suspect, Nacer Bendrer, was later identified and arrested.
The Prix Victor-Rossel is a literary award in Belgium that was first awarded in 1938. The award was created by three people associated with the newspaper Le Soir: the owner Marie-Thérèse Rossel, the manager Lucien Fuss and the editor-in-chief, Charles Breisdorff.
On 6 August 2016, a man attacked two policewomen with a machete in Charleroi, Belgium, before being shot dead by another police officer.
Events in the year 1844 in Belgium.
Christian B.S. Van Eyken is a former Belgian politician who represented the Union des Francophones in the Flemish Parliament from 1995 to 2019. He was convicted of murder in 2019, with the court of appeal upholding the verdict in 2021.
Ahmed Laaouej is a Belgian politician. He is a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives elected through the Parti Socialiste. He is the mayor of the commune of Koekelberg and Head of the PS parliamentary group in the House of Representatives.
Georges-Louis Bouchez (GLB) is a Belgian politician and lawyer. Since 2019 he has served as a Senator and leader of Reformist Movement. He is also the owner and chairman of Challenger Pro League football club Royal Francs Borains.
ISLAM is a Belgian Islamist political party. It aims at the establishment of an Islamic state in Belgium and the replacement of the current and historically existing legal system in Belgium with Sharia. The party claims to "wait" for Belgium to "inevitably become an Islamic state".
Thomas Ménagé is a French politician and activist who has represented the 4th constituency of the Loiret department in the National Assembly since 2022.
Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven is a Belgian francophone politician and a member of the MR.
Quelle tristesse ! La police me conseille de quitter mon domicile suite aux différentes menaces de mort reçues ce soir. Une preuve supplémentaire que nous ne vivons plus en démocratie. La police craint même la descente de la LDJ [Jewish Defense League] à mon domicile. Merci à la police qui prend très au sérieux les menaces que je subis actuellement. Jamais je n'aurais cru que cette dernière soirée avant les élections du 25 mai allait se passer de la sorte. Par mesure de sécurité, je ne peux vous communiquer comme prévu l'adresse où se tiendra demain soir notre soirée électorale.