January 27, 2015, President François Hollande made "conspiracy theorists" responsible for the crimes committed by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe. He called for a ban on their freedom of expression.
A history stitched together by lies and cover-ups, political assassinations, slight-of-hand false flag deceptions, secret societies, dual loyalties and stolen fortunes - this have been the privilege of ruling elites for centuries.
Putting aside history's 'big ticket' items though, the real reason for this authoritarian trend is much more fundamental. By knocking out their intellectual competition, political elites and their media moguls hope to minimalize, and thus eliminate any alternative analysis and opinion by applying the completely open-ended and arbitrary label of "extremist" to speech. They want to wind back the clock, where a pre-internet, monolithic corporate media cartel held a monopoly on ideas.
Although France has taken the lead in this inter-governmental effort (see below), the preliminary assault began this past fall with British Prime Minster David Cameron publicly announcing on two separate occasions, that all of these so-called 'conspiracy theories' (anything which challenges the official orthodoxy) should be deemed as "extremist" and equivalent to "terrorist" and should be purged from society on the grounds of 'national security'. The first came with Cameron's warped speech at the UN, and afterwards, a similar charge was made by the UK leader against anyone who dares press the issue of institutional paedophilia and child abuse.
Watch this UN speech by Cameron where he clearly claims that 'conspiracy theorists' are the 'root cause' and indeed, an equal threat to national security as ISIS terrorists currently running amok in Syria and Iraq (start 4:26)...
Comment: Since sanctions against Russia only seem to be backfiring on the U.S./EU, it's probably smart to for them to quit beating that dead horse.