CRIF CONDEMNS LE PEN’S L ATEST PROVOCATION

These statements besmirched the memory of all the victims of Nazism, the prisoners of the concentration camps, the Resistants and of all the French people submitted for over four years to the most atrocious occupation and humiliation.

The President of the National Front sticks to the spirit of his former declarations about the gas chambers being "a detail of the history of the Second World War" and shows he remains close to his old friends.

"The German occupation (of France) was not especially inhuman, even with the unavoidable blunders in a country of 550,000 square kilometers," " If the Germans had carried out mass executions across the country as the received wisdom would have it, then there wouldn’t have been any need for concentration camps for political deportees," said Le Pen.

In the interview published by Rivarol, Le Pen also questioned the ordeal of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane where 642 French men, women and children were murdered in June 1944 by the Nazi SS column Das Reich retreating from France. The civilians were locked up in the village church that was then torched by the Germans.

Le Pen was cautious enough not to repeat his theory about Oradour when he was interviewed a few days later by the popular French radio station RTL but he did not hesitate to restate his position on the "humanity" of the German occupation.

French Cabinet Minister of Justice Dominique Perben requested the Republic's Attorney General to investigate the matter and see if Le Pen could be prosecuted for his statements.


French law forbids the negation of crimes against humanity committed during the Second World War.

However, Le Pen seems to have carefully prepared his umpteenth provocation and according to Michel Zaoui, member of CRIF's Bureau and a lawyer of the LICRA, the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, it could prove very difficult to sue the extremist leader. "From a legal point of view, Le Pen's statements are value judgments; there is a risk that such a case would simply be thrown out of court. This would be terrible," said Zaoui.

LICRA added "Le Pen is a senile old man whose words inspire only despise and disgust. How come his statements published by a tiny circulation rag received such publicity?"