Nicolas Sarkozy has not been at all happy that there is a voodoo doll made in his image. He’s been trying to get the doll banned, but has lost yet another court case to have it banned. Even worse, in the latest attempt to have the doll banned, the court ordered that the Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo doll be packaged with a bright red banner with black block lettering declaring that sticking pins in the doll is insulting to the French President.
K&B Editions put the voodoo doll on the market on October 9th only to have it sell out by the end of the month. They produced more along with a book on how to use the doll. The court ruling today is the first time a French court has ruled against a sitting President. The courts ruled that banning the voodoo doll was a violation of free speech and the people’s right to humor.
They did acknowledge that the doll is an affront to the President’s dignity and therefore have required the company to put the above mentioned banner on the box the doll is sold in with this exact wording:
“It was ruled that the encouragement of the reader to poke the doll that comes with the needles in the kit, an activity whose subtext is physical harm, even if it is symbolic, constitutes an attack on the dignity of the person of Mr. Sarkozy.”
The courts also required that K&B Editions pay President Sarkozy a symbolic fee for damages.
Of course, the more that has been done to try to get the Sarkozy voodoo doll banned, the more popular the doll has become. After all, the French have a ‘right to humor’.
