Paris ( CNN ) -- This is a country which says races do n't exist : there is only the human race , to which we all belong . This is a country which , unlike the U.S. and Britain , has purposefully limited freedom of speech in order to criminalize verbal violence and incitement to hatred in all its forms . But this is also a country where the black justice minister Christiane Taubira is welcomed by a child with the words `` Hey , guenon [ monkey ] , go and eat bananas ! '' The 12-year-old girl who uttered those words in the town of Angers on October 25 had come with her parents to protest against the same-sex marriage law of which the minister has become a symbol . In the crowd of protesters were a dozen children shouting the word guenon ; their parents looked pleased , proud even . And we thought , naively , and rather condescendingly , that this sort of racist abuse could only be found in a country like Italy , ethnically less diverse than France . We all remembered Italy 's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi repeatedly describing U.S. President Barack Obama as `` really much tanned '' . We all remembered , earlier this year , Congo-born Cecile Kyenge , Italy 's first ever black minister , having bananas thrown at her . Italian senator Roberto Calderoli even referred to her as `` having the features of an orangutan . '' We thought such coarse xenophobia could not take place here . No , surely not in France ! How wrong we were . It actually took many of us by surprise . The fact that parents asked their children to hurl racist abuse at a government minister added to the sense of shock . As explained in a timelime in French weekly L'Express ' , it actually took days for the French political class to react to the racist insults endured by Taubira . Why such dithering ? Some were embarrassed ; others feared they might exacerbate the current tension in France if they made too big a fuss . The same sex marriage legal battle which raged on last year seems to have reopened a box we thought long shut : France has witnessed the resurgence of a far-right alliance between traditionalist Catholics and ultra-conservatives who suddenly see themselves as the new revolutionaries . At night , they dream of insurrection . It has sometimes felt like being thrown back in time , to the 1930s . On November 13 , however , Minute , an extreme-right publication which ran the monkey analogy on its front page , was formally investigated for racism , and Interior Minister Manuel Valls said he was looking at blocking the distribution of the magazine . `` We can not let this pass , '' he said . `` This is not just Christiane Taubira who has been attacked for her color . It is the Republic , it is France and its values that are under attack . '' For the Paris-based Moroccan poet and writer Tahar Ben Jelloun , in an open letter called `` Racism , the ultimate temptation '' and published in the Italian daily La Repubblica on November 15 : `` Everywhere in Europe , we see the resurgence of racism . It may only be words but it could end with the gas chambers . '' According to Jelloun , France is no more racist than its neighbors but the real problem is that , today , racism finds an ideal breeding ground on social networks where anonymity unleashes unrestrained violence . In a famous recent case , the French justice system , often harsher on verbal violence than many other countries , has tried to stop Twitter from serving as a platform for all kinds of xenophobic abuses presented as `` jokes . '' In October 2012 , racist hashtags in French such as # IfMyDaughterComesHomeWithABlack or # AGoodJew unleashed the worse examples of unrestrained racism . In France , racial insults in public are punishable by up to six months in jail and fines of up to â‚¬25,000 ; French justice was determined to sanction the xenophobic twitterati . At first , Twitter told the French justice it could not reveal its users ' identities and would only obey the laws of California where it was based . But French judges argued -- successfully -- that the targeted public and the racist perpetrators were French-speakers operating from France . Twitter eventually complied to reveal the identity of those who had generated racist tweets so they could be prosecuted in France : A victory . French judges should now turn their attention to the French parents who teach their children to shout racist insults at a government minister born in French Guyana . Punitive sentences would be welcome . As would the end of anonymity on social networks . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Agnes Poirier .
France 's justice minister Christine Taubira the target of racist taunts and abuse . In one incident Taubira was insulted by a 12-year-old girl as her parents looked on . Journalist Agnes Poirier says most French people considered France above such attacks . Poirier : Parents who teach children to shout racist insults must be punished .