French politician convicted of war denial
08/02/2008 - 16:05:39Far right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was given a three month suspended sentence today for denying the brutality of the wartime Nazi occupation.
A Paris court also fined him €9,732 for his remarks about life during the Second World War.
Le Pen was convicted on charges of “complicity in justifying war crimes” and “complicity in contesting a crime against humanity” for comments he made during a 2005 interview with the far-right weekly Rivarol.
The magazine quoted Le Pen as saying: “In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a few blunders, which is inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometres.”
The court also fined the director of Rivarol magazine €3,355.
