After promoting a children’s book about Palestine whose title echoes the anti-Zionist slogan From the River to the Sea, the Parisian queer and feminist bookstore Violette and Co is the subject of an investigation that led to a search of its premises.
Raiding a bookstore isn’t very Charlie. It happened at the lesbian and feminist bookstore Violette and Co, located in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which published this Friday on Instagram a statement denouncing “an unprecedented and troubling authoritarian drift.” The events occurred on January 7, when a team of police and a prosecutor arrived at the establishment to carry out a search as part of a judicial investigation. This investigation was opened after the report of the sale of a children’s coloring book about Palestine.
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Contacté par têtu·, le parquet de Paris nous a confirmé l’ouverture d’une enquête, après signalement par le ministère de l’Intérieur, “pour importation de publication destinée à la jeunesse comportant un contenu dangereux pour elle”, un délit passible d’un an d’emprisonnement et de 3.750 euros d’amende. Et de développer : “Cet ouvrage, édité en Afrique du Sud, avait en effet fait l’objet d’une interdiction d’importation par la commission presse de la DPJJ”, c’est-à-dire de la direction de la protection judiciaire de la jeunesse. Cette commission de surveillance et de contrôle des publications pour la jeunesse (CSCPJ) a pour mission de contrôler et de donner un avis – contraignant – avant l’importation de toute publication étrangère destinée aux enfants et adolescents. Dans ce contexte, complète le parquet, la perquisition du 7 janvier visait à “saisir les objets interdits à la vente”.
From the River to the Sea
The controversy surrounding this book began last summer, when it ended up in the bookstore’s display window. The reason: its overt stance from the title, which reuses a famous pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist slogan: From the River to the Sea. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this expression, “from the river to the sea”, indeed expresses the wish that the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea belong to Palestine, i.e., that Israel be erased from this map.
Targeted by tags accusing it of antisemitism, Violette and Co had then filed a complaint for vandalism and threats. The establishment also had a grant application to the Île-de-France region refused, which justified this to Mediapart: “Any structure or association seeking a subsidy from the region must strictly respect the Charter of the values of the Republic and secularism. However, the association Violette & Co is hosted by the bookstore of the same name which, through the book it displayed in the window, relays antisemitic publications calling for hatred.”
Considering that the object of its troubles is only an “educational coloring book”, the bookstore asserts that the publishing house had not been informed of its ban by the CSCPJ: “It will be informed only on January 8”, i.e., the day after the search. And the bookstore team denounces “a disproportionate police raid in a cultural venue, unprecedented in France and very worrying for the fundamental freedoms of bookstores.” The Paris prosecutor’s office indicates that “auditions will be conducted”, which Violette & Co. announces for January 22.
