French police Wednesday detained the controversial comic Dieudonne for posts on Facebook that appeared to praise the Paris terror attacks.

Dieudonne's detention for defending terrorism followed a four-year prison sentence involving the same charge for a man in northern France who seemed to defend the attacks in a drunken rant while resisting arrest, according to The Associated Press.

Dieudonne, who popularized an arm gesture that resembles a Nazi salute and who has been convicted repeatedly of racism and anti-Semitism, is no stranger to controversy. His provocative performances were banned last year but he has a core following among many of France's disaffected young people.

His Facebook post, which was swiftly deleted, said he felt like "Charlie Coulibaly" -- merging the names of Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who seized a kosher market and killed four hostages, along with a policewoman.

In a separate post, the comic wrote an open letter to France's interior minister.

"Whenever I speak, you do not try to understand what I'm trying to say, you do not want to listen to me. You are looking for a pretext to forbid me. You consider me like Amedy Coulibaly when I am not any different from Charlie," he wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.