The Tokyo District Court has thrown out a suit against Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara and the metropolitan government by a group of French and Japanese citizens who claimed that Ishihara “insulted the French language.”

At the Tokyo District Court, Presiding Judge Katsuhiko Kasai said, “What he said is not true, but it was not targeting any individual either. His remarks surely lack consideration to the feelings of people associated with the French language, but it cannot be immediately concluded that the remarks hurt their sense of honor.”

The remarks in question were uttered by Ishihara in 2004, when he said, “French is disqualified as an international language because it is a language which cannot count numbers.”

Ishihara was pleased with the ruling, pointing out that, “The court made a logical conclusion. People cannot sue me just because they don’t like what I say.”

The group that brought the suit against the gov feels different about the outcome.

Speaking to reporters, Malik Berkane, the operator of a French language school, said, “I am deeply disappointed. Opposition against racial discrimination is stated in the charter for the Olympics, which he is seeking to invite to Tokyo (in 2016), but what he says and what he does are totally different.”

Personally, I cannot understand how remarks about a national language constitute “racial discrimination.”