Journalist and essayist Eric Zemmour, who is running in the 2022 French presidential election, was fined €10,000 ($11,400) on Monday for inciting hatred against migrants on TV.
A Paris court tried Zemmour for the remarks he made on a TV show in September 2020.
While speaking about unaccompanied minors entering the country, the journalist said: “They’ve got no reason being here, they are thieves, they are killers, they are rapists, that’s all they do, they should be sent back.”
The broadcast took place days after a Pakistani-born Islamist went on a stabbing spree outside the former office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, wounding two people.
The prosecution argued that Zemmour “crossed the limits of the freedom of expression.”