Racist anonymous letters sent to public figures: a single suspected author behind multiple mailings
An Arcom judge has filed a complaint after receiving hateful mail at her home. According to franceinfo - Justice, several letters sent to journalists and elected officials show striking similarities.
A presumed anonymous letter writer behind a series of hateful messages addressed to French public figures
Franceinfo - Justice reveals that a judge at the audiovisual regulator Arcom filed a complaint on Wednesday 2 September after receiving anonymous hateful mail at her home. An investigation by Radio France's investigation unit has established that this letter shares numerous points in common with other mailings sent in recent years to journalists and political leaders across France.
Laurence Pecaut-Rivolier, a member of Arcom's board and advisor at the Court of Cassation, discovered the letter upon returning from holiday in early August. Written in capital letters in black pen on white paper, the letter tells her to do "your job properly as a prostitute for Macron" and describes Arcom as a "bunch of parasites of the Republic". "I experienced it as an intrusion into my private life, a bit like a burglary," she stated.
The judge emphasises the difference between receiving insults in a professional context and being targeted at home. "When you discover this as a surprise, at home, outside your workplace, it's different, it's a real assault: you're not prepared," she explains. She questions the personality of the author: "Who could have had enough violence, enough hatred to seek out an address, put an envelope and a stamp to send to a person they don't know?" Arcom filed a complaint in support, also for libel, at a Paris police station.
Troubling similarities between multiple letters
Radio France's investigation unit has established that several letters received by different public figures share common characteristics: the same black pen handwriting in capital letters, the same types of envelopes, and in some cases, an identical post office as the point of dispatch.
In June 2024, France Télévisions journalist Karim Rissouli published the content of a letter he had received at his home on Instagram, wishing, in his words, to "denounce the racist speech that was being unleashed at the time". The anonymous letter writer notably wrote: "French people have had enough of all these Arabs" and "The native-born Frenchman will never accept you, neither you nor your brothers".
Nassira El Moaddem, a journalist at Arrêt sur Images, also received a letter displaying the same handwriting and the same graphic characteristics. She had herself highlighted these similarities on her X account in June 2024 with the phrase: "Same individual, the same hatred." She now wishes to join the complaint filed by the Arcom judge.
At the same time, in summer 2024, Sonia Devillers, a journalist at France Inter, received at her home a remarkably similar letter, occurring shortly after she had conducted an interview with Marion Maréchal.
Elected officials also targeted in several regions
Radio France's investigation is not limited to the media. Municipal councillors based in different regions of France are also among the recipients of letters showing similarities with those already identified. Aly Diouara, LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, had himself publicly denounced in 2025 "a racist letter left at his home" and announced that he had filed a complaint on that occasion.
The diversity of the profiles targeted — a judge, journalists from national media, local elected officials and a deputy — strengthens the hypothesis of a single author acting in a targeted and methodical manner, capable of obtaining personal addresses. Investigations are continuing in an attempt to formally identify the author or authors of these mailings.
Source: franceinfo - Justice