Bob Dylan, who is well-known for his stance and songs supporting civil rights, is facing charges of racism in France. French authorities filed preliminary charges against the legendary singer for remakes he made in a Rolling Stone interview last year where he compared Croatians to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said charges against Bob Dylan were filed in the middle of November. Bod Dylan is charged with "public insult and inciting hate." Dylan regularly performs in France.

The charges against Bob Dylan started with a lawsuit by a Croatian community group in France over the statements Dylan made in September 2012.

The charges were filed two days before Bob Dylan was awarded France's highest military and civil esteem, the Legion of Honor. The award was not without its controversy. Several French groups protested Dylan's anti-war sentiments and marijuana use, among other complaints. Bob received a French government honor at the Culture Ministry on Nov. 13. They were not publicly confirmed until this week.

Bob was talking about race relations in the United States. Dylan said "If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

Ivan Jurasinovic, an attorney for the Croatian group, says the group doesn't want money, but wants Dylan, "a singer who is liked and respected in Croatia, to present an apology to the Croatian people."Jurasinovic says he is surprised that similar lawsuits have not been filed by Croatians in Croatia or the United States.

The Rolling Stone magazine interview came out last year. The magazine asked Bob Dylan about 1860s America and the present day. The "Like  Rolling Stone" singer said that the U.S. is "too fucked up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back -- or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery -- that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. "That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

That caught the eye of France's Council of Croats. They sued the rock icon and the French edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

According to International Business Times, Vlatko Marić, secretary general of the Council of Croats, said, "It is an incitement to hatred. You cannot compare Croatian criminals to all Croats. But we have nothing against Rolling Stone magazine or Bob Dylan as a singer."

Croats and Serbs have been fighting for years. Their conflict culminated  in a four-year war that raged from 1991 to 1995. After the war, Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia.

Dylan's people have not made any comment.