The mayor of Paris on Sunday joined France'sinterior minister in calling for comedian Dieudonne, whose vitriolic brand ofhumor targeting Jews has caused outrage, to be banned from the stage.
Dieudonne has been part of France's comedy scene for years, but while hestarted out with a Jewish comedian in sketches that mocked racism, hegradually veered to the far-right and alienated some fans with anti-Semiticcomments - one of his latest being a joke about gas chambers.
Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe likened Dieudonneto a criminal who "defends crimes against humanity".
"We must ban the performances (of the comedian)," he said, echoing recent comments made by Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who said he would look into banning Dieudonne.
Dieudonne has been fined several times for defamation, using insultinglanguage, hate speech and racial discrimination, and a provocative arm gesturehe makes has been described as an upside down Nazi salute. The salute - called "quenelle" - has since been adopted by anti-Semites, who often post online pictures of themselves making the gesture at Jewish sites. The phenomenon has alarmed anti-hate groups, and provoked several vigilante attacks by Jewish militants in France, who identified and tracked down several anti-Semites after spotting pictures of them making the quenelle online.
The gesture has landed several personalities in hot water, includingsoccer player Nicolas Anelka, who used it to celebrate a goal.
SOS Racisme, an organisation that fights racism and anti-Semitism,announced Sunday it would take to court anyone who spread pictures of or didthe "quenelle" in locations such as synagogues or Holocaust memorials "thatleave no doubt" as to the anti-Semitic nature of the gesture.
Valls, meanwhile, has said he wants to ban performances by Dieudonne on hisnationwide tour this month, outraged by the comedian's recent jibe againstJewish radio presenter Patrick Cohen.
"When I hear Patrick Cohen speak, I tell myself, you know, the gaschambers... A shame," Dieudonne had said in comments filmed secretly at a showand aired on French television last month.
Valls, who says Dieudonne's shows are taking the form of extremist politicalrallies, has also asked the comedian to pay some 65,000 euros ($88,500) he hasrun up in fines.
Officials in several cities where Dieudonne is set to perform during hisJanuary tour have said they are trying to ban his show.
Veteran Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have called for a protest onWednesday at a theatre in the western city of Nantes, where Dieudonne is dueto perform. The French Jewish Defense League - or Ligue de Defense Juive (LDJ) - has similarly called a rally, with activists warning of further reprisals against Dieudonne-inspired anti-Semites.
And Patrick Klugman, the lawyer representing SOS Racisme, said Sunday theorganisation would "look into all legal possibilities of holding liable thosewho allow Dieudonne's commercial venture to prosper", such as those who selltickets to his shows.
But the comedian has scores of die-hard fans from the fringes of French politics - including an eclectic mix of far-left, far-right and Islamist extremists - who feel he is being houndedby the media and politicians.
"There are some who say much worse things than him and no one says anythingto them," one netizen said on a Facebook page that presents itself asDieudonne's official page, and has 466,000 likes.
"Leave him alone, I saw him twice in Lille (northern France)... He's great."
'Living in a world of hatred'
The controversy comes at a sensitive time for France, where racism has shotto the fore after the country's black justice minister became the victim of aseries of racial jibes - prompting President Francois Hollande to pledge "intransigence" on racism in his New Year's address.
Valls himself has been accused of discrimination after he said in Septemberthat Roma did not want to integrate.
The French-born son of a Cameroonian father and a white mother, DieudonneM'Bala M'Bala shot to fame in the 1990s in a double-act with his childhoodfriend, Jewish comedian Elie Semoun.
But in 1997, he fell out with Semoun, who has since accused him of "livingin a world of hatred".
Dieudonne veered to the far right, cosying up to National Front founderJean-Marie Le Pen and becoming politically active in what he callsanti-Zionism, standing for EU-wide elections in 2009 on an anti-Zionistplatform although he won little over one percent of the vote.
The Shia Muslim convert visited Iran and professed admiration for its leaders, describedHolocaust commemorations as "memorial pornography" and made "Heil"-like signsin televised sketches.
But his shows at a small theatre in Paris that he manages attract packedaudiences - and there is no sign of him backing down on his anti-Semitic rhetoric.
An AFP journalist who attended one of his shows on Thursday said the comedian performed for 75 minutes, during which he regularly railed against "the Jews", "Jewish people", "kippa city", or "thebanking slave master" to general hilarity.