Controversial Remark
On 10 September 2009, Le Monde disclosed a video showing Hortefeux at the UMP Summer School in Seignosse, France, on Saturday, 5 September 2009. As he posed for a photograph with a young man of Arabic origin, the following conversation can be heard (translation):
Female voice – He is Catholic, he eats pork and drinks beer!
Hortefeux – Oh really? Well, he does not match the prototype at all!
Female voice – He is one of us... he is our little Arab.
Hortefeux – We always need one! When there is only one, it's okay. It's when there are many that problems begin.
In June 2010, a French court found Hortefeux guilty of a racial insult, and fined him 750 euros with an order to donate 2,000 euros to an anti-racism group. Hortefeux' lawyer said that they would appeal the ruling.
Read more about this topic: Brice Hortefeux
Famous quotes containing the word remark:
“I know not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that lessons of wisdom have never such power over us, as when they are wrought into the heart, through the ground-work of a story which engages the passions: Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon?”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)