A cake maker in the south of France has been threatened with
legal action for inciting racial hatred unless he stops selling cakes
deemed “obscene” by an anti-racism group in France. The baker told The
Local he's a victim of "intellectual terrorism".
The owner of the pâtisserie in the town of Grasse, near Nice could
find himself in hot water after being accused of selling racist cakes.
The sweet pastries in question, named “Gods” and “Goddesses” are in
the form of obese people, covered in dark chocolate with over-sized
sexual parts.
While the baker who sells the little men and
women filled with shortbread and chocolate mousse sees the cakes as
inoffensive, for one anti-racism group in France, they are anything but.
“It’s pure and simple racism,” Louis-George Tin from France’s
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) told The Local.
After being made aware of the cakes by a shocked customer, CRAN
denounced the “obscene slave trade caricatures that tap into the
tradition of colonial racism” and threatened to lodge a complaint for
inciting racial hatred.
“We are in a country where the word
equality is part of the constitution, which means it doesn’t allow for
racism. Does he think these treats adhere to the values of the French
Republic?” said Tin.
“We must fight this kind of racism. I
cannot imagine what would be said (rightly) if an African baker decided
to represent Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary in a similar way,” Tin
said.
The group has asked the local mayor Jerome Viaud to take a stance.
However the baker Tannick Tavolaro remains defiant.
He told The Local he found the complaint absurd and firmly denies he is racist.
“At first I thought it was a joke then I read the news. It’s absurd
and hurtful. These pastries have absolutely no racial connotation at
all," he said.
“It’s made of chocolate mousse, which is why
it’s black. The characters are little human beings, a man and woman but
not a black man and a woman,” said Tavolaro.
“These people who
attack me don’t know my story or my career or who I am. It’s just
intellectual terrorism and I won’t yield to that kind of terrorism,” he
said.
Tavolaro has vowed to continue to make his controversial cakes despite the threats.
“I am not racist. I do not belong to any political party. I just argue for freedom of speech,” he told The Local.
It's not the first time a bakery in France has provoked outrage over its creations.
In September last year a pâtisserie in Auxerre was forced to change
the name of its biscuits named "bamboula" and "negro" after complaints
from anti-racism groups.
And it's not just in France.
In 2012, Sweden's then culture minister Adelsohn Liljeroth came close to
losing her job when she cut into the vagina area of a cake modelled on a
black woman's body, which was part of an art project.
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