Populist Reconquest MEP Nicolas Bay has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity after allegations of “hate speech” over criticism of a mosque development in northern France.
French MEP Nicolas Bay, a member of conservative writer Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest party, was stripped of his immunity by the European Parliament on Thursday after French authorities accused him of hate speech.
The hate speech allegations date back to May of 2021 when Bay released a video on social media regarding the building of a mosque in the Normandy region. He is accused of linking the building of mosques to radical Islamic ideologies and to terrorism, Euractiv reports.
“The docile majority, the servile majority… voted to waive my parliamentary immunity […] We are not giving up, I will fight in French courts,” Bay said in response to the European Parliament vote.
Bay was formerly a member and vice president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. In February of last year when he was alleged to have passed on information to Eric Zemmour during the first round of the French presidential elections.
Despite being removed from the RN, Bay later called for an alliance between Zemmour and Le Pen prior to the French parliamentary elections — but his efforts were unsuccessful.
The subjects of Islamisation and the development of parallel societies in France have been major topics of discussion for years, with President Emmanuel Macron claiming he would tackle the issue in 2020.
According to a leaked January 2020 report from the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), around 150 neighbourhoods across France are “held” by Islamist radicals, including parts of the no-go Seine-Saint-Denis suburbs of Paris and the suburbs of the cities of Lyon and Marseilles.
Several mosques in France have also been closed in recent years after being linked to radical Islam, including a mosque just outside of Le Mans which was shut down by authorities after preaching for armed jihad.