Hot news

Bob Dylan smokes a cigarette circa 1966. Dylan's music spoke to a generation of people during the 1960s, a tumultuous decade that forever changed America. He went on to become a rock 'n' roll legend and influence many musicians to come.

Dylan performs in 1961 at The Bitter End club in New York City. His first album, "Bob Dylan," debuted in 1962 and consisted mostly of old folk songs.

Joan Baez and Dylan perform during the March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, on August 28, 1963.

Dylan performs on stage in the 1960s. Dylan was known in his early career for playing the guitar and the harmonica, and for his distinctive vocal phrasing.

Dylan listens to recordings of his album "Highway 61 Revisited" in 1965. It contained "Like a Rolling Stone," which went to No. 2 on U.S. charts.

George Harrison and Dylan perform in the Concert for Bangladesh, held August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The concert earned them the Grammy Award for Album of the Year along with Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Leon Russell, Ravi Shankar and Ringo Starr.

Dylan appears on set for the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" in 1973. Dylan also recorded the soundtrack for the film.

Dylan performs on stage at Madison Square Garden in 1974.

Dylan performs with Robbie Robertson of The Band, right, and Van Morrison at The Band's farewell concert in 1976.

Dylan performs with Tom Petty at Farm Aid in Chicago in 1985.

Dylan poses for a photo with David Bowie in 1985.

Dylan and Bruce Springsteen perform together in 1990.

Performance artist Michael Portnoy is taken off stage during Dylan's performance at the Grammy Awards in 1998. Portnoy had been hired as part of the background dancers for the performance, but his shirtless interruption was not planned and he was carted off stage.

Dylan performs in Brighton, England, in 2002.

Dylan appears with actress Jessica Lange during a news conference for the movie "Masked and Anonymous" in 2003. Dylan co-wrote the movie and starred in it.

Dylan poses for photos at the University of St. Andrews after he received an honorary degree at the Scottish school in 2004.

Dylan performs during the Grammy Awards in 2011. Dylan has won 10 Grammys in his career, as well as one Golden Globe Award and one Academy Award.

President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dylan in the East Room of the White House in 2012. The award is the country's highest civilian honor. "I remember, you know, in college, listening to Bob Dylan and my world opening up, 'cause he captured something about this country that was so vital," Obama said.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Editor's note: Matthew Fraser is a professor of communications at the American University of Paris and a lecture at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. His most recent book, "Home Again in Paris," is a personal memoir about expat life in France.

(CNN) -- Less than a month ago Bob Dylan could justifiably feel he was revered in France. The singer was in Paris to receive France's highest public award, the Legion d'Honneur.

As France's most prestigious medal was pinned to Dylan's lapel, his French hosts heaped praise on the 72-year-old legend for his contribution to music -- and notably his songs inspired by French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine.

It was impossible to predict that, only three weeks later, Dylan would be embroiled in an ugly controversy that has resulted in preliminary charges against him in France for inciting racial hatred.

Ironically, Dylan's comments were made about America, not France. In a Rolling Stone interview published in 2012, the singer was quoted as saying: "If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

A Croatian group in France pressed charges against Dylan for his remarks. Now Dylan, who has performed in both Croatia and Serbia, finds himself in legal trouble in France for comments he made last year about racism in America.

The Croatian group claimed that Dylan was equating all Croatians with the small minority of Croatian war criminals.

The tension between Croatians and Serbs has deep historical roots, most recently with the breakup of former Yugoslavia, during which accusations of genocidal massacres were made on both sides. Farther back, during World War II when the political movement Ustasha ruled Croatia, it erected concentration camps for Jews, Serbs, Roma gypsies and other non-Catholic minorities. It is believed that roughly 320,000 ethnic Serbs were killed under the Nazi-allied Ustasha.

Did Bob Dylan "incite hatred"?

Bob Dylan charged with 'inciting hate'

In France, a country where racism is a sensitive issue, the controversy surrounding Dylan touches a raw nerve. The French have questioned themselves whether they are racist and xenophobic, especially toward the minority African and Muslim populations whose integration into French society has been rife with tensions and sometimes violence.

French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, one of the country's most prominent black politicians, has been subjected to racial slurs. A right-wing French magazine, "Minute," featured a headline about her: "Crafty as a monkey, Taubira gets her banana back."

The famous French movie actress Brigitte Bardot has been convicted and fined for inciting racial hatred for her comments about Muslims in France after complaining on her website that Muslims were "destroying our country by imposing their ways."

The French have also struggled with its history of anti-Semitism, which flared up during the infamous Dreyfus Affair at the end of the 19th century when a Jewish military officer was wrongfully accused and convicted of treason. France's collaboration with the Nazis during World War II is a shameful chapter in the country's past that was for decades swept under the carpet of collective memory.

Today it is illegal in France to deny the Holocaust and incite racial hatred, and sell Nazi memorabilia on the Internet. (For example, a French judge in 2000 found the U.S.-based company Yahoo guilty of facilitating neo-Nazi auctions.)

Dylan's published comments have opened old wounds in France. Yet there is something curious about the timing of these charges against him. First of all, the singer made the remarks to Rolling Stone last year; they were later published in a French version of the magazine. And the Croatian group's complaints against the singer apparently date to November 2012.

It is interesting, too, that the preliminary charges by French prosecutors against Dylan were filed on November 11, only two days before the legendary singer was to receive his Legion d'Honneur from a Socialist government that is usually admiring of engagé pop singers with a strong anti-establishment political message.

In the stuffy precincts of the Legion d'Honneur's Grand Chancellerie, it appears that the government's nomination of Dylan for the award had originally been received sniffily. In May, French press reports claimed the 17-member Legion d'Honneur council had tossed out the nomination on the grounds that Dylan had been an anti-war radical during the Vietnam War and, moreover, had used drugs. It was only after some backroom intrigue that it was announced that Dylan would receive the Legion d'Honneur after all.

Dylan fans doubtless find this whole thing perplexing. Yet it's not surprising that this blew up in a country where hate-speech accusations often reach the courts.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Matthew Fraser.