A court in Avignon, in southern France, gave Patrick O’Brien, a 60-year-old Irish citizen, a six-month suspended prison sentence on Friday after convicting him of making antisemitically motivated death threats and of justifying crimes against humanity, a criminal offense in France. O’Brien had threatened to kill a Jewish couple from Australia during a confrontation at a supermarket.
The judges also ordered him to pay the woman and her husband €500 [$560] each, and rejected prosecutors’ request to ban him from France for three years. Jewish organizations that joined the case criticized the sentence, arguing that it was too lenient to serve as a deterrent.
The incident took place on August 11 at an Auchan superstore in Le Pontet, near Avignon. The Australian couple had struck up a friendly conversation with O’Brien, a Dublin native, about the French national soccer team jersey the husband was wearing. When the conversation turned to Ireland’s policy toward Israel, O’Brien became aggressive and made antisemitic remarks.
‘It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job’
“It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job,” he told the couple, according to their testimony. When the woman took out her cellphone and began recording, O’Brien threatened to put a bullet in her head. The video went viral on social media, sparking outrage in France and beyond. The woman’s father is a Holocaust survivor, and members of her family were murdered at the Auschwitz death camp.
C.H.A.R., a French organization that fights hatred, antisemitism, and racism, joined the case as a civil party, a status under French law that allows victims and advocacy groups to take part in criminal proceedings and seek damages, and was represented by attorney Annie Cohen. The group welcomed the conviction but said it was deeply disappointed by the sentence.
“To publicly wish for the completion of the Holocaust, and then to threaten to murder a woman because she is Jewish, and to come away with a suspended sentence and a payment of just a few hundred euros: this is a message that minimizes the gravity of these acts, and we cannot accept it,” a spokesperson for the organization said after the sentencing.
The group also emphasized the victim’s family history. “The victim’s father survived the Holocaust; members of her family were murdered in Auschwitz. What was said to her was, in effect, an expression of regret that her family had not been wiped out entirely,” it said.
B’nai B’rith also joined the case as a civil party. The court ordered O’Brien to pay each of the two organizations €300 [$335].
After the video spread online, investigators from France’s gendarmerie, a national police force, identified O’Brien using the supermarket’s security cameras and tracked him down at his home in the Avignon area. He was arrested on August 26. Digital devices seized from his home contained additional racist content, according to prosecutors, including remarks targeting people from developing countries.
O’Brien admitted making the statements but claimed they came during a heated argument
Avignon prosecutor Stéphanie Huin said O’Brien admitted making the statements but claimed they came during a heated argument about Ireland’s policy toward Israel. She said he expressed remorse and explained that he had lost his temper. During the trial, he portrayed himself as someone opposed to violence, described himself as “a committed humanist,” and said he has health problems.
Despite convicting him on both counts, the court chose not to send him to prison.
The case drew condemnation as early as August, when French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised the investigators’ work, stressing that “antisemitism must be fought with determination and without respite.” Now, following the sentencing, Jewish organizations are warning that lenient sentences for explicit death threats and statements praising the Holocaust could send a dangerous message at a time of growing concern over antisemitism in France.
