Gayssot Law

The Gayssot Law (in French , Loi Gayssot ) is the common designation of the law French No. 90-615 of 13 of July of 1990 , “designed to repress any purpose racist , anti - Semitic or xenophobic .” Thus, article 1 of the law states that “any discrimination based on belonging or not belonging to an ethnic group , nation , race or religion is prohibited”. Its predecessor was the law of 1 as July as 1972 on the fight against racism. ¹

Since the enactment of the Gayssot law in France, is an offense to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity , as defined in the London Charter on the basis of which they were convicted leaders Nazis in The Nuremberg Trials between 1945 and 1946 . Proposal by Deputy Communist Jean-Claude Gayssot , is one of many European laws prohibiting Holocaust denial . The Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme (National Consultative Commission on Human Rights), established in 1947 , it is responsible for preparing an annual public report on the situation of racism in France.

Robert Faurisson criticized this law as a violation of his right to freedom of expression under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Human Rights Committee upheld the Gayssot Act as necessary to counter antisemitism . ²

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