A prominent French journalist is now under police protection after receiving a torrent of death threats over a documentary that sheds light on the catastrophic social impact that mass migration and radical Islam have had on a small city in northern France.
Ophélie Meunier, a 34-year-old journalist, and television presenter was placed under the protection of French authorities following a wave of death threats that immediately proceeded last month’s airing of Zone Interdite, a television documentary examining the massive—and immensely undesirable—cultural influence radical Islam has had on the city of Roubaix, Le Figaro reports.
The documentary, partially filmed with a hidden camera, features a toy shop selling dolls devoid of facial features, in strict conformity with the Islamic doctrine of aniconism—common among fundamentals Sunni sects like Salafists and Wahhabis—which prohibits figural representation of humans and animals. The filmmakers also encountered a shop selling a book that depicts armed jihad in a favorable light.
At one point in the film, Meunier encounters a restaurant where women are given cubicles to eat separately from men. The documentary also shines a light on a ‘charity association’ granted nearly €65,000 from the city council to help teach poorer students—but which was later accused by local prosecutors of illegally redirecting the funds to offer Islamic education.
Meunier, the presenter of the documentary, isn’t the only film crew member who’s been placed under police protection in the face of death threats. Michaëlle Gagnet, the film’s director, along with Amine Elbahi, a Muslim living in Roubaix who spoke out against the spread of radical Islam, now find themselves in the same precarious position as Meunier.
While many leftists have stayed conspicuously silent, right-leaning politicians, media outfits, and journalists have spoken out in solidarity with Meunier and the others.
Presidential hopeful Éric Zemmour took to social media on Saturday to weigh in on the matter, writing: “Ophélie Meunier is in mortal danger. This is what happens when you show the French the Islamization of our country. Millions of patriots thank her for her courage.”
Zemmour expressed his feelings at greater length in a commentary piece published in Le Figaro, where he wrote: “The habits and customs of totalitarian Afghanistan are taking root here, under the benevolent gaze of the public authorities… I am fighting so that there are no more Milas—so that our daughters and our sons can live free and in peace in this country.”
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Rassemblement National who, like Zemmour, is hoping to dethrone incumbent candidate Emmanuel Macron this spring, also took social media to denounce the growing threat of radical Islam.
“Only our law eradicating Islamist ideology everywhere and a real determination to act will be effective against the ravages of political Islam,” she wrote.
Rightist media portals Valeurs Actuelles and Fdesouche and centrist publications like Le Monde, Le Point, and others expressed their solidarity with the filmmakers’ plight.
The story comes almost exactly two years after the so-called ‘Mila Affair,’ a similar case which saw Mila, a 16-year-old female singer from the Isère region in Eastern France, placed under police protection after she was subjected to tens of thousands of death threats over a video posted to social media where she spoke out against radical Islam.
