Paris, Feb 01: France will soon pass a law to curb anti-Semitic television broadcasts coming from the West Asia and fine satellite operators who distribute anti-Jewish programmes, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said. Raffarin yesterday told the annual dinner of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) that he and several cabinet ministers had seen some of these broadcasts and found them ``unbearable to watch (and) revolting``.
This followed an appeal by CRIF president Roger Cukierman to block anti-Semitic broadcasts from the West Asia, which officials here say encourage Muslim youths in France to attack Jews to take revenge for Israeli policy against the Palestinians.
``I believe deeply that our struggle against hate must take on a new dimension,`` Raffarin said as he announced the government would submit a bill to parliament to enable French judges to stop a satellite station that broadcasts anti-Semitic material.
He said the law would force satellite operators to inform Paris which stations they carried and threaten them with fines if they transmitted provocative broadcasts.
Satellite television is widely watched in the poor suburbs around French cities where most recent anti-Semitic attacks have occurred.
Cukierman said ``We see that messages of anti-Jewish hate are invading the airwaves. Day after day, they reach households in our cities and suburbs thanks to satellite dishes.`` Bureau Report