For the Canadian filmmaker, see Robert Ménard (director).

Robert Ménard (born 6 July 1953) is a French politician and former journalist serving as Mayor of Béziers since 2014. A founder of the Paris-based international non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders, he was its general-secretary from 1985 to 2008. He subsequently participated in the launch of the information website 'Boulevard Voltaire' in 2012. An Independent since 1981, Ménard joined the Les Amoureux de la France alliance in 2017.

Contents

• 1 Family and education
• 2 Politics
• 3 Media
• 4 Great Replacement
• 5 Works
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Family and education

Ménard comes from a Catholic French Pied-Noir family which settled in Algeria in the 1850s. Around the time of the Independence of Algeria and when he was nine years old, the family moved to Brusque, Aveyron. He studied religion, and planned on becoming a priest.

Ménard's wife, Emmanuelle Ménard (née Duverger), was elected to the National *embly in the 2017 legislative election as the member for Hérault's 6th cons*uency. He has one daughter with her and two children from previous relationships. In 2008, he created, with her, the publishing house Mordicus and released a book of interviews between Dieudonné M'bala M'bala and Bruno Gaccio under the *le Can we say everything?, echoing the book by Raoul Vaneigem, Nothing is sacred, everything can be said, criticizing the Gayssot Law, defending the freedom of expression of Holocaust deniers, prefaced by Robert Ménard himself:; interviews of Alain Soral in the Medias magazine and of Dieudonné again on Sud Radio, in 2012.

Politics

While in college, he became aligned with Trotskyist elements; he joined the Socialist Party before leaving it in 1981.

In 2013, he announced he would be a candidate for the position of Mayor of Béziers in the 2014 municipal elections. He launched his campaign with the support of the sovereigntist right-wing party Debout la République. Ménard subsequently welcomed the support of the National Front, which endorsed him as its candidate although he was not a member. His move to the far-right attracted media attention. He described himself publicly as a "reactionary", supporting the reintroduction of the death penalty and objecting to the legalisation of gay marriage in May 2013. He was elected Mayor of Béziers on 30 March in the second round with 47% of the vote.

In May 2015, Ménard violated French law by attempting to record the religion of schoolchildren in his city, claiming that 64.9% were Muslim, based on their first names. In September, he visited a refugee complex to tell them that they were not welcome in France, and two months later he declared that no more kebab restaurants would open in Béziers. He promoted the concept of "Great replacement", created by Renaud Camus, inspired by the ideology of Jean Raspail, used during the 2017 Unite the Right rally, in Charlottesville.

In March 2018, he announced he would seek a second term in the 2020 municipal elections, running once again as an Independent because of disagreements he has with certain policies promoted by the National Front. In May 2018, Ménard was physically attacked and pushed to the ground while visiting Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde to attend a conference, by what he himself called "left-wing fascists". The author of the push was later convicted to a suspended prison sentence of four months.

He was reelected as Mayor of Béziers on 2020 with 65% of the vote.

Media

In 1975, Ménard created the pirate radio station Radio Pomarède and became president of the *ociation pour la libération des ondes (*ociation for the liberation of the airwaves). He consequently became the target of many lawsuits, in one of which, François Mitterrand, later President of the French Republic gave a character reference. He later created the free magazine Le Pe* biterrois but had to close it down due to a lack of advertisers. In 1985 he co-founded Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontières).

A Rue89 post claims Ménard became the focus of significant controversy after an interview with France Culture in which in response to a question about the case of the kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl he made a statement which some have interpreted as saying that the use of torture could be justified in some cir*stances. On 24 March 2008 Ménard and two other members of Reporters Without Borders were arrested for attempting to disrupt the lighting of the Olympic Flame prior to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The disruption was aimed at protesting the crackdown on Tibetan civil rights activities by the Government of the People's Republic of China.

Ménard resigned from his role as secretary-general of RWB in September 2008 and became director-general of the Doha Center for Media Freedom in Qatar which opened in October 2008. Ménard resigned as director-general in June 2009, complaining of obstruction by officials of the Government of Qatar of the Center's work (notably its criticism of Qatar's restrictive media policies, along with the Center's efforts to bring several persecuted journalists to Qatar for temporary refuge), despite earlier *urances that it would be allowed to operate freely.

On 1 October 2012, he founded, along with Dominique Jamet, the conservative news website Boulevard Voltaire.

Great Replacement

Ménard has supported the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Speaking of the demographics of school children in France, La Croix covered his statement that in one cl*room at a school near his home 91% of pupils were "Muslim children", claiming that "obviously it is a problem". Ménard declared that it was "proof of the Great Replacement in progress" in France. He was convicted of "incitement to hatred and discrimination" and ordered to pay €2,000.

Works

• Ménard, Robert (1990). Club des 500:: les 500 qui font le Languedoc-Roussillon. Montpellier: Éditions ensoleillées-Intelligence Média. OCLC:463753984.
• Faes, Géraldine; Ménard, Robert (2001). Ces journalistes que l'on veut faire taire:: l'étonnante aventure de Reporters sans frontières. Paris: Albin Michel. ISBN:9782226122131. OCLC:301652528.
• Duverger, Emmanuelle; Ménard, Robert (2003). La censure des bien-pensants. Paris: Albin Michel. ISBN:9782226136145. OCLC:51517129.
• Ménard, Robert (2008). Les jeux de la honte:: Pourquoi il faut boycotter la cérémonie d'ouverture des JO de Pékin. Paris: Le Cherche midi.
• Ménard, Robert (2008). Des libertés et autres chinoiseries:: de Reporters sans frontières aux JO de Pékin. Paris: Robert Laffont. ISBN:9782221111642. OCLC:471018628.
• Lévy, Elisabeth; Ménard, Robert (2009). Les Français sont-ils antisémites:?. Paris: Editions Mordicus. ISBN:9782918414162. OCLC:463623557.
• Ménard, Robert; Steiner, Thierry (2010). Mirages et cheikhs en blanc:: enquête sur la face cachée du Qatar, le coffre-fort de la France. Paris: Editions du Moment. ISBN:9782354170738. OCLC:527339723.
• Duverger, Emmanuelle; Ménard, Robert (2011). Vive Le Pen:!. Paris: Éditions Mordicus. ISBN:9782918414278. OCLC:721534013.
• Ménard, Robert; Rolando, Thierry (2012). Vive l'Algérie française:!. Paris: Éd. Mordicus. ISBN:9782918414537. OCLC:805044093.
• Ménard, Robert (2016). Abécédaire de la France qui ne veut pas mourir. Paris: Éditions Pierre-Guillaume de Roux.

References

External links

• Doha Centre for Media Freedom.