“Is that you, Jordan? Jordan! Are you the fucking son of a bitch who set up the boys in Aulnay? You’re a fucking suicide candidate, you’re wanted by the whole department, the whole of Aulnay is looking for you, you’re the next Mila.” These words were reportedly uttered by comedian and radio presenter Yassine Belattar to a journalist from the independent media Le Livre Noir on Friday November 19. The journalist Jordan Florentin reported these remarks on social networks and on Le Livre Noir on Saturday November 20. He accused Yassine Belattar of intimidation, blackmail and death threats. “Last night, Yassine Belattar kept me and my co-worker locked up in his theatre for an hour with the bars down.” So begins the statement of Jordan Florentin, who says he “suffered outrageous psychological violence”. He filed a complaint.
It all started around 8 pm. At the time of the incident, Jordan Florentin was shooting a documentary entitled “Yassine Belattar, humourist or politician?”. For this reason, he went “in front of the Théâtre des dix-heures, Boulevard de Clichy, in the 18th arrondissement”. In the same publication, he explained that he and his collaborator “legally [conducted] interviews on the street with [their] microphone from the Livre Noir and [their] camera”. To people unfamiliar with the medium, he said, he explained that “we are a web medium and on social networks like Brut and Konbini we can only be found on YouTube”. But immediately Belattar “severely defamed them and falsely stated that they were impersonating the said media”. A complaint was then filed.
After conducting interviews with his audience, Jordan Florentin explained that he and his staff had attended the comedian’s show “without filming because we were aware of the illegality if we had done so”. However, he said Yassine Belattar had asked him for his SD card “without proof” and “forcibly” because he was convinced he had been recording. The end of the show is approaching. The journalists are waiting for Belattar “to take a photo with him”. The comedian then decided to “lock a team of journalists in his theatre for an hour without the possibility of leaving”.
After his bodyguard let them out, “Belattar grabbed me by the shoulder and forcibly pulled me back into the building to explain his point,” Jordan Florentin continues. At that moment, the comedian referred to him as “the next Mila”. He told his security guard to “lower the bars of the theatre and lock the doors”, according to the journalist’s account. Jordan Florentin explains that he and his collaborator were not safe at that moment: “There are two of us, surrounded by Belattar, the producer, the security guard and about ten members of the public (pro-Belattar) who remained present.”
The Livre Noir journalist said he had asked for “a peaceful discussion” several times, but was denied it. Yassine Belattar replied: “Shut the fuck up, I don’t discuss with fascists and Nazis”. The journalist asserted that he and his co-worker were “humiliated” and “lynched”, while the scene was filmed live by those present and Belattar, “mad with rage”, threatened to “punch him in the face”. He said, “Now you are in the lion’s cage, you have gone to the jungle, the lion is me, he will bite you now. I’ll get the army to come for you,” the comedian is then reported to have said to him, before phoning “a young man from Aulnay” and telling him, “Come, I have Jordan from Livre Noir in my theatre. He’s with us in the 18th arrondissement.
Yassine Belattar responded on his Instagram account, stating that he had “rarely had comparable experiences of violence” and that his audience had “saved him from the worst”. He stated that he “does not speak to racist media” and that he was “thinking about ending his career” because “dedicated artists like him” were “too vulnerable” in his opinion. Finally, he said, “Chirac spoke of a social divide, we are in a moral divide under Zemmour”.