Le Pen to stand trial for Nazi occupation remarks
French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has been ordered to stand trial for comments denying the brutality of the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War, judicial officials said today.
Le Pen is under investigation for “justifying war crimes” and “complicity in contesting crimes against humanity”.
He can appeal the two separate rulings ordering him to stand trial, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In January 2005, the National Front leader gave an interview to the small extreme-right paper Rivarol.
He was quoted 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 220,000 square miles.”
France’s justice minister also expressed concern about an anecdote Le Pen reportedly told the magazine – about the Gestapo stopping a potential massacre in northern France – because it appeared to put the Nazi police force in a favourable light.
