hatred of Jews. "Antisemite? I'm not of that opinion," he says in the video. "I'm not saying I'd never be one... I leave myself open to that possibility, but for the moment, no." Later, he added, "I don't have to choose between the Jews and the Nazis." An official January 2014 circular issued by Interior Minister Manuel Valls besides laying out a legal justification for banning antisemitic performances by Dieudonné also specifically linked the quenelle gesture to anti-Semitism and extremism. Beginnings Dieudonné was initially active on the anti-racist left. In the 1997 French legislative election, he worked with his party, "Les Utopistes", in Dreux against National Front candidate Marie-France Stirbois and received 8 percent of the vote. Verbally and in demonstrations, he also supported migrants without a residence permit (the so-called "sans papiers") and the Palestinians. 2002–2006 Since 2002, Dieudonné has attracted attention by making increasingly polemical statements. In an interview for the magazine Lyon Capitale in January 2002, he described "the Jews" as "a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all, because it was the first" and said he preferred "the charisma of bin Laden to that of Bush". He subsequently tried to run for president in the 2002 presidential election, but failed to get in the race. On 1 December 2003, he appeared live on a television show disguised as a parody of an Israeli settler wearing military fatigues and a Haredi (Orthodox) Jewish hat. The sketch climaxed with a Hitler salute, after which Dieudonné shouts out a word. According to Dieudonné, he shouted "Israël" in the persona of the Haredi. In the following days, some news agencies stated that he shouted "Isra – Heil" or "Heil Israel". He was cleared of charges of antisemitism in a Paris court after the judge said this was not an attack against Jews in general but against a type of person "distinguished by their political views". At the 2004 European Parliament election, Dieudonné was a candidate for the extreme left-wing party "Euro-Palestine", but left a few months after the election because of disagreements with its leaders. Dieudonné is the director of the Les Ogres website, where he makes plain his denial of the historical version of the 9/11 events. Following this television appearance, a Dieudonné show in Lyon (at La Bourse du Travail) on 5 February 2004 was picketed and a bottle containing a corrosive product was thrown in