Jean-Marie Le Pen is fined £25,000 for Holocaust denial Anonymous 04/07/16 (Thu) 16:17:24 3b2d70 No.5685706

Former French far-Right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is fined £25,000 for Holocaust denial after describing the gas chambers as a 'detail of history'

>Jean-Marie Le Pen formed France's far-right National Front party in 1972

>The 87-year-old has now been fined for a statement denying the Holocaust

>He had described the Nazis' WWII genocide of Jews as a 'detail of history'

>Daughter Marine, who now runs the party, distanced herself from his claim

>She is desperately trying to shake off the party's anti-Semitic reputation

>Far-right French MEP Jean-Marie Le Pen was today fined £25,000 for Holocaust denial after describing the wartime genocide of Jews as a 'detail of history'.

>The founder of the National Front (FN) had claimed immunity from prosecution because of his status as a European Parliament member representing South-East France.

>But judges sitting at the Paris Correctional Court rejected his defence, saying he was 'guilty of questioning a crime against humanity'.

>The conviction for gross anti-Semitism will increase tensions between the 87-year-old and his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who is the current leader of the FN.

>She has desperately been trying to 'modernise' the party against accusations that members have Nazi sympathies.

>Reigniting old tensions, Mr Le Pen appeared on live French TV a year ago and said: 'What I said corresponds to what I think.

>'The gas chambers were a detail of the war, unless we admit that the war was a detail of the gas chambers!'

>During the interview on the BFMTV channel in Paris, Mr Le Pen said 'the truth' should 'not shock anyone', and that historical reality should not be used to portray him as anti-Jewish.

>'This case was manipulated against me by introducing a hint of anti-Semitism,' said Mr Le Pen. 'I challenge anyone to name an anti-Semitic phrase in my political life.'

>Repeatedly questioned about the Holocaust, Mr Le Pen said: 'War is horrible, you know, a piece of shrapnel that tears your stomach, a bomb that decapitates you, a room in which you are asphyxiated, it's all pretty disgusting, it's true.'

>Marine Le Pen turned on her father at the time, saying: 'I deeply disagree with him. I take note of what he said but I believe that those coming over to vote for us understand what is going on. He is being deliberately provocative.'

>Mr Le Pen, who was not in court today, is also at the centre of a financial corruption scandal, with investigators looking party funds over the years.

>Senior party officials have also been identified in the so-called Panama Papers – leaked documents which expose politicians who have used offshore companies to avoid tax.

>Ms Le Pen's party regularly wins up to 25 per cent of the popular vote at local and regional elections, and Ms Le Pen intends to stand for the job of president in 2017.

>Under her leadership, the party has deepened its roots across France, winning outright control of some town halls and getting its officials elected onto the councils of 'departements', broadly the equivalent of counties.

>Polls suggest she could make it into the second-round run-off of a presidential election but is unlikely to win.

>Mr Le Pen remains popular with many FN members, despite having been convicted on numerous occasions of being anti-Jewish and for 'inciting racial hatred'.

>He has regularly made the comment about the Holocaust, telling the European Parliament in 2009: 'I just said that the gas chambers were a detail of Second World War history, which is clear.'

>Mr Le Pen was first convicted by a Munich court in 1999 for 'minimising the Holocaust' after telling a German far-right meeting that Nazi concentration camps and the gas chambers are 'what one calls a detail'.

>He has had a string of other convictions, including ones for violence and was briefly banned from being an MEP in 2003 following a physical attack on a French Socialist MEP.

>Jews have complained of increasing anti-Semitism in France, much of it stirred up by far-right activists.

>The Nazi Holocaust extended to France between 1940 and 1944, when thousands of Jews were entrained from cities like Paris to the German gas chambers.

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