LONDON — In 2008, the French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala finished a performance in Paris by inviting a Holocaust denier onstage to receive a prize from an actor dressed in striped pajamas resembling a concentration camp uniform, with a yellow star bearing the word “Jew.”

The prize was a three-branch candelabrum with three apples on top.

Mr. M’bala M’bala was convicted the next year on hate crime charges and fined 10,000 euros, or $10,750, in connection with the performance, and he eventually took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

On Tuesday, the court ruled against him, saying that laws on freedom of expression did not offer protection for anti-Semitic comments or statements denying the Holocaust. The case has highlighted growing tensions in France between the country’s commitment to free speech and the desire to prevent hate crimes.

Mr. M’bala M’bala’s brand of comedy has been widely condemned, while at the same time gaining support from some French Muslims, disgruntled youth and members of the far right. He lamented in 2013 that a prominent Jewish journalist had not died in “the gas chambers.”