A Franco-Algerian influencer, Sofia Benlemmane, arrested Thursday near Lyon as part of an investigation into hateful videos online, was presented to the prosecution this Saturday, January 11. The fifty-year-old “is referred today at the end of his police custody, for the purpose of notifying him of a summons to appear on March 18, 2025 before the criminal court of Lyon”, declared the prosecution.
She is being prosecuted for “provocation to commit a crime or misdemeanor”, “death threats by image”, “public insult due to sexual orientation or gender identity” and “public insult due to origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion. “Requisitions are presented to the judge of freedoms and detention for the purpose of placing the person concerned under judicial supervision before her trial, including a ban” to use his accounts on social networks, according to the prosecution.
Followed on TikTok and Facebook by more than 300,000 people, Sofia Benlemmane notably insulted another woman during a live broadcast in September, by throwing at her “fuck your mother, you and your France”, “I hope you get killed, I hope they kill you”. Her lawyer, Me Frédéric Lalliard, contests any criminal offense in the comments made against Sofia Benlemmane, even if they “may irritate or shock”.
This former football player had already made headlines in 2001 when she was given a seven-month suspended prison sentence and a three-year stadium ban for having entered the pitch of the Stade de France with an Algerian flag during a a France-Algeria friendly match.
Support for the Algerian government
If she firmly opposed the power in place in Algiers a few years ago, her speech has since radically changed and she now shows support for the current government.
She’s not the only one. Since the beginning of January, five other Algerian influencers have been targeted by procedures in France for hate speech, often targeting opponents of the Algerian government, in a context of diplomatic tensions between Paris and Algiers.
