There is an old expression once known by François Villon, "Rendre vessies pour lanternes" (To believe that the moon is made of green cheese).

    This is what Meurice is trying to do, and he proclaims, blandly, that he regrets having called a fascist a Nazi. He would have us believe that he was grossly mistaken.First of all, the Nazi Party was related to the political family of fascism. Either meaning is the same.

    So his pseudo excuse is inadmissible.

    What he really meant, volens nolens, by calling Netanyahu a Nazi without a foreskin, does have anti-Semitic and not political connotations. Because words have meaning, including and especially in the form of jokes.He had already shown ignorance, as previously demonstrated; Now he's doing it again. So he's a huckster who would have us mistake to believe «des vessies pour des lanternes» (that the moon is made of green cheese).

    For the meaning lantern, which in the above-mentioned expression dates back only to the nineteenth century, originally expressed the idea of nonsense, of absurdity. "Vendre vessie pour lanterne" is a phrase from around 1174. The two terms, which in absolute terms have a similar image, metaphorically express the idea of selling wind and not the confusion of objects*. A lantern-maker was a teller of nonsense, or a teller of silly remark to sell his lanterns. The bladder, pigskin, inflated with air, and therefore with wind, and the lantern, boniment. It is not, therefore, as it is used nowadays, to be grossly mistaken, to believe that the bladder resembles a lantern, that is to say, altered from its original meaning of deceiving its world.

    Meurice is therefore a huckster who, perceiving the imbecility he has shown and fearing for the rest of his career, tries, by a trick, to bamboozle us; to mystify us.

    The next time he wants to make a good word to boost his audience, he will do well to dive into an encyclopedia or a dictionary, if he knows the meaning, to learn to read and avoid drowning in his buffooneries. For to claim exaggeration is to fall into the vulgar.

    That being said, there is no justification for the threats received by the comedian, nor for the last show to be broadcast without an audience. It must still be possible, in France, to express oneself without fear of the violence of ultras cretins, other than that of reasonable and well-founded criticism.

*P. Guiraud, "Les Locutions françaises" p. 86 (books.google.fr/)