The Jewish owner of a small French publisher was fined €5,000 (S$8,432) last week for advertising a job vacancy with a warning that candidates of North African origin need not apply.
The advert posted at a job center in the eastern suburbs of Paris stipulated that Jean-Luc Benady would not employ North Africans and led to a prosecution for discrimination on the grounds of race and religion.
After being found guilty and fined at a court in the small town of Bobigny, an unrepentant Benady described the way he had framed the advert as a "precautionary measure."
As a Jew, he argued, he was justified in regarding every member of France's large North African population as a potential threat because each of them "could have a father or a brother who doesn't like Jews".