MONTREAL – Quebec’s largest concert promoter has pulled the plug on shows next week by Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, the controversial comedian who has been found guilty of inciting hatred in France.

Three days before Dieudonné was scheduled to begin a four-night run at Montreal’s Corona Theatre, Evenko announced Friday it was cancelling its rental of the theatre to the French comedian.

“Due to contractual conflicts, the Corona Theatre has decided to cancel Dieudonné’s performances scheduled for May 14, 15, 16 and 17,” the company announced in a brief statement. Theatre management said ticket holders would be refunded and it apologized “for any inconvenience this situation may have caused.”

The sudden decision follows the National Post’s report Wednesday that the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs had complained to the prominent promoter, part of the Montreal Canadiens operation, about its decision to provide Dieudonné a stage.

“It is well-known that Dieudonné’s trademark is not humour but hatred toward Jews,” Luciano Del Negro, the organization’s vice-president (Quebec) wrote in a letter to Evenko. “That is why the French courts have on several occasions found him guilty of inciting hatred.”

The letter noted that Dieudonné’s current show, Rendez-nous Jésus (Give us back Jesus), has been branded “a long litany of anti-Semitic comments” in the Belgian press. An article in Le Soir in March said it featured Holocaust denial, slurs against the Talmud and the comment that Hitler was “a nice boy.”

This week, Dieudonné was forced to cancel one Belgian performance of Rendez-nous Jésus and had another interrupted by police. Agence France Presse reported that police stopped Dieudonné mid-performance Wednesday night.

“It was Dieudonné who went overboard, first with xenophobic comments and then by inciting hatred,” the news service quoted Brussels mayor Freddy Thielemans as saying.

The Montreal performances would have come as Dieudonné promotes his first feature film, L’Antisémite, which was subsidized by the Iranian regime. The trailer for that film shows a character portrayed by Dieudonné acknowledging he has the “sickness” of anti-Semitism. “It’s clear the Jews control everything – the media, finance, politics,” he says. “We no longer have a choice. We must exterminate them.”

When the French anti-racism group Licra sought to have the film and trailer banned last month, its lawyer called it an apology for the Holocaust, the Agence France-Presse reported. Dieudonné’s lawyer responded that it was “slapstick comedy” with a cathartic value. In the end the judge ruled there was no urgency to prevent the sale of the film, despite its “insidious and particularly excessive nature.”

Dieudonné was once a darling of the Quebec comedy world, performing at major festivals in Montreal and Quebec City. But as his material got nastier, he has been increasingly falling out of favour. David Ouellette, spokesman for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said this week that the comic appeals to “a niche audience and he no longer benefits from the sympathies of mainstream Quebec society.”

Evenko and Dieudonné’s management in France were not immediately available for comment. (© 2012 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. 05/12/12)