Samuel Goujon – TROLL OF THE MONTH

The Troll of the Month is an incident we choose every month to expose racist and anti-religious haters and to show positive outcomes in the fight against intolerance in Europe.

Screenshot from Le Parisien

Samuel Goujon, the founder of the antisemitic website ‘Ils sont partout’ (‘They are everywhere’), was indicted by the Paris prosecutor's office at the end of August.  

His website, which is no longer accessible, listed Jewish personalities, often accompanied by a photo and a short biography for each. “Ils sont partout” claimed to offer a “duly verified census of French and international personalities” of Jewish faith, divided by sector (media, culture, politics, and finance) to push the conspiracy narrative that there is a secret Jewish power that is progressively taking over the world. 

Goujon was indicted for public insult on account of origin or membership of a racial or religious group, public incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence, and public incitement to wilful attacks on life. Licra, GTTO partner in France, was a civil party in the trial. 

In the past months, Pharos, the web platform of the French Ministry of the Interior, which allows Internet users to report online hate messages, received reports denouncing the website. On 10 August, France’s Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin said that the website was going to be closed “as quickly as possible” as he made a report to the prosecutor. 

The website “Ils sont partout” was antisemitic because, by aiming to show the presence of Jewish people in media, finance, culture and politics, it is advancing a millennia-old conspiracy narrative that portray Jewish people as secret puppeteers who exert control on influential sectors and, as a consequence, on world events. This myth has nothing to do with reality, but it has been used to incite hatred against Jewish people and justify violence and persecution.