Robert Ménard

Robert Ménard
Mayor of Béziers
Assumed office
4 April 2014
Preceded by Raymond Couderc
Personal details
Born (1953-07-06) 6 July 1953
Oran, French Algeria
Nationality French
Spouse(s) Emmanuelle Duverger
Children 3
Profession Journalist

Robert Ménard (born 6 July 1953) is a French politician and former journalist. One of the founders and the former secretary-general of the Paris-based international NGO Reporters Sans Frontières, he currently is mayor of the town of Béziers in the south of France and was elected with the support of the party National Front.

Family and studies

Ménard comes from a Catholic French Pied-Noir family which settled in Algeria in the 1850s. Around the time of the Independence of Algeria and when he was nine years old, the family moved to Brusque, Aveyron.[1] He studied religion, and planned on becoming a priest.

Ménard is married to Emmanuelle Duverger. He has one daughter with her and two children from previous relationships.

Politics

While in college, he became aligned with Trotskyist elements, and joined the Socialist Party.

In 2013, he announced he would be a candidate for the position of mayor of Béziers in the 2014 municipal elections. He launched his campaign with the support of the sovereigntist right-wing party Arise the Republic, and subsequently welcomed the support of the far-right National Front, who endorsed him as their candidate although he was not a member.[1] His move to the far right attracted media attention. He described himself publicly as a "reactionary", supporting the reintroduction of the death penalty and objecting to the legalisation of gay marriage in May 2013.[1] He was elected mayor on 30 March in the second round with 47% of the vote.[2]

In May 2015, Ménard violated French law by attempting to record the religion of schoolchildren in his city, claiming that 64.9% were Muslim, based on their first names. In September, he visited a refugee complex to tell them that they were not welcome in France, and two months later he declared that no more kebab restaurants would open in Béziers.[3]

Media

In 1975-1976, Ménard created the pirate radio station Radio Pomarède and became president of l'Association pour la libération des ondes - The Association for the liberation of the airwaves. He consequently became the target of many lawsuits, in one of which, François Mitterrand, later President of France gave a character reference. He later created the free magazine Le Petit biterrois but had to close it down due to a lack of advertisers. In 1985 he created Reporters sans Frontières.[1]

A Rue89 post claims Ménard became the focus of significant controversy after an interview with France Culture in which in response to a question about the case of the kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl he made a statement which some have interpreted as saying that the use of torture could be justified in some circumstances.[4]

Manifestation in Paris « Beijing 2008 »

On 24 March 2008 Ménard and two other members of Reporters sans Frontières were arrested for attempting to disrupt the lighting of the Olympic Flame prior to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The disruption was aimed at protesting the crackdown on Tibetan civil rights activities by the Government of the People's Republic of China.[5]

Ménard resigned from his role as secretary-general of RSF in September 2008[6] and became director-general of the Doha Center for Media Freedom in Qatar which opened in October 2008.[7][8] Ménard resigned as director-general of the Center in June 2009, complaining of obstruction by Qatar government officials of the Center's work (notably its criticism of Qatar's restrictive media policies, along with the Center's efforts to bring several persecuted journalists to Qatar for temporary refuge), despite earlier assurances that it would be allowed to operate freely.[9]

On October 1, 2012, he along with Dominique Jamet founded the extreme-right news website Boulevard Voltaire.

Views

The Great Replacement

Ménard has promoted and supported The Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Speaking of the demographics of school children in France, La Croix covered his statement that in one classroom at a school near his home 91% of pupils were "Muslim children", claiming that "obviously it's a problem".[10] Ménard declared that it was "proof of the Great Replacement in progress" in France.[11]

Works

  • Ménard, Robert (1990). Club des 500 : les 500 qui font le Languedoc-Roussillon. Montpellier: Éditions ensoleillées-Intelligence Média. OCLC 463753984.
  • Faes, Géraldine; Ménard, Robert (2001). Ces journalistes que l'on veut faire taire : l'étonnante aventure de Reporters sans frontières. Paris: Albin Michel. ISBN 9782226122131. OCLC 301652528.
  • Duverger, Emmanuelle; Ménard, Robert (2003). La censure des bien-pensants. Paris: Albin Michel. ISBN 9782226136145. OCLC 51517129.
  • Ménard, Robert (2008). Les jeux de la honte : Pourquoi il faut boycotter la cérémonie d'ouverture des JO de Pékin. Paris: Le Cherche midi.
  • Ménard, Robert (2008). Des libertés et autres chinoiseries : de Reporters sans frontières aux JO de Pékin. Paris: Robert Laffont. ISBN 9782221111642. OCLC 471018628.
  • Lévy, Elisabeth; Ménard, Robert (2009). Les Français sont-ils antisémites ?. Paris: Editions Mordicus. ISBN 9782918414162. OCLC 463623557.
  • Ménard, Robert; Steiner, Thierry (2010). Mirages et cheikhs en blanc : enquête sur la face cachée du Qatar, le coffre-fort de la France. Paris: Editions du Moment. ISBN 9782354170738. OCLC 527339723.
  • Duverger, Emmanuelle; Ménard, Robert (2011). Vive Le Pen !. Paris: Éditions Mordicus. ISBN 9782918414278. OCLC 721534013.
  • Ménard, Robert; Rolando, Thierry (2012). Vive l'Algérie française !. Paris: Éd. Mordicus. ISBN 9782918414537. OCLC 805044093.
  • Ménard, Robert (2016). Abécédaire de la France qui ne veut pas mourir. Paris: Éditions Pierre-Guillaume de Roux.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Robert Ménard, porte-flambeau de la dédiabolisation du FN", Le Monde, 21 June 2013
  2. ↑ "French Voters Shift to the Right in Mayoral Elections". International Herald Tribune. 2014-03-31. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
  3. ↑ Kizil, Nurbanu (2 November 2015). "Islamophobic French mayor declares war on kebabs, says he will not allow more kebab restaurants to be opened". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  4. ↑ Jean-Noël Darde, Quand Robert Ménard, de RSF, légitime la torture, Rue 89, 26 August 2007 (in French)
  5. ↑ "Reporters Without Borders demonstrates in Olympia at start of Olympic torch relay to Beijing". Archived from the original on 2008-03-25. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
  6. ↑ "Robert Ménard "se passera très bien des médias"" (in French). Le Figaro. 2008-09-26. Archived from the original on 2008-12-24. Retrieved 2008-12-24.
  7. ↑ "Organes de gouvernance" (in French). Doha Center for Media Freedom. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-12-24. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
  8. ↑ "Media Safety - Qatar: Doha Centre for Media Freedom launched". International News Safety Institute / BBC Monitoring. 2008-10-18. Archived from the original on 2013-01-30. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
  9. ↑ "Robert Ménard and staff leave Doha Centre For Media Freedom". rsf.org. 23 June 2009. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "Robert Ménard condemned after his remarks on the "great replacement" in schools". La Croix. 25 April 2017.
  11. ↑ "Robert Ménard condemned after comments about "Muslim" students in his city and the "big replacement"". Libération. 25 April 2017.
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