Overview
- Judicial police and a prosecutor’s magistrate searched the Violette & Co bookstore on January 7 seeking a children’s coloring book titled From the River to the Sea.
- The Paris prosecutor’s office requested the search and later confirmed that no copy was found or seized at the store.
- Bookstore staff have been summoned to the police station at the end of January as the investigation continues.
- The publisher, Social Bandit Media, called the operation an act of censorship, disputing accusations that the book incites hatred toward Israelis.
- France’s youth-publication watchdog issued an unfavorable opinion on November 14 citing a risk of indirect incitement to hatred, but no Interior Ministry order has been issued to ban sale or distribution.