Philippe Karsenty is a French-Jewish politician and founder of Media-Ratings, a company monitoring the French media for bias. Karsenty came to public attention when he was sued for libel by the public French television network, France 2, over accusations of staged footage by France 2 over the killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, libel for which he was eventually and definitively convicted.
Early life
Karsenty was born into a family of Jewish immigrants from North Africa. When he was in his 20s, he set up a share-trading company on the Paris Bourse, and continued to work as a broker until 1997.
Career
In 1996, he set up a business consultancy, and in 2002, he ran for parliament on a center-right ticket, obtaining only 3% of the vote. He was then condemned to one-year ineligibility for not deposing his campaign budget. In 2008, he was elected a deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
In 2002, he was proactive in a tentative to censor the diffusion of a pro-Palestinian book "Rêver la Palestine" edited by renowned French editor Flammarion. Orit Arfa of the Jewish Journal described Karsenty as a "pro-Israel activist".
Muhammad al-Durrah Controversy
Karsenty came to public attention in 2004, when he was sued for libel by the French television network, France 2, after accusing the network of having broadcast a staged footage of the reported killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, during a gun battle in the Gaza Strip in 2000. France 2 won its case in October 2006, but the judgment was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2008, with France 2 refusing to release the full footage taken by their stringer on that day. France 2 has appealed the decision to the Cour de cassation, France's highest court. In February 2012, the Cour de cassation cancelled the ruling of the Court of Appeal which had acquitted Karsenty. On 26 June 2013, the Paris Court of Appeals once again convicted Karsenty of defamation, and fined him €7000. In parallel, on 10 June 2010, a court in Nanterre sentenced Canal Plus and Tac Press for defaming Philippe Karsenty in a documentary entitled Rumors, Brainwashing: The New News War, broadcast by this channel on 24 April 2008. Karsenty said that "Israel is despised in France. It’s perceived as a strong and wealthy country whose army behaves like the Nazis. My decision to fight infuriated many people, not only in the French establishment, but in the Jewish community too. A lot of Jews and non-Jews have told me that I’m right, but that they can’t support me publicly because they can’t fight against this establishment".
