The Versailles court of appeals ruled on an article that ran June 4, 2002, called Israel-Palestine: The Cancer. The court ordered the directors, Edgar Morin and Jean-Marie Colombani, as well as the two authors, to pay a symbolic one Euro in damages to a human-rights alliance and to Lawyers Without Borders, and ordered Le Monde to publish a condemnation of the article.

Two particular passages were cited for their racist character. The first reads, One has trouble imagining that a nation of refugees, descendants of the people who have suffered the longest period of persecution in the history of humanity, who have suffered the worst possible scorn and humiliation, would be capable of transforming themselves, in two generations, into a dominating people, sure of themselves, and, with the exception of an admirable minority, into a scornful people finding satisfaction in humiliating others.

The second incriminating citation reads, The Jews, once subject to an unmerciful rule, now impose their unmerciful rule on the Palestinians.