Wednesday, 12 January, 2005

The French authorities have ordered a criminal investigation into alleged comments about Nazi wartime occupation by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
He reportedly said the Nazi occupation of France during World War II was "not especially inhumane".

French Justice Minister Dominique Perben said he was appalled and had asked prosecutors to open a preliminary inquiry into the comments.

The 76-year-old National Front leader has a history of being controversial.

He apparently made his latest comments during an interview with the small extreme-right paper Rivarol.

"In France at least, the German occupation was not especially inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses - inevitable in a country of 550,000 sq km (220,000 sq miles)," he was quoted as saying.

"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."

He went on: "It's not just from the European Union and globalisation that we need to deliver our country, but also from the lies about its history."

'Detail of history'

Anti-racism laws in France make denying the Holocaust a crime, punishable by either fines or prison.

"He will have to explain himself before the justice system," said Dominique Perben.

"I'm struck by the way Mr Le Pen has insulted the victims, their families, former combatants, those who were deported and all those who suffered during this dark period of our history."

Mr Le Pen, who founded the National Front (FN) party in 1972, has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism on a number of occasions before.

In 1987 he described the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history".

More than 70,000 French Jews were deported during the Nazi occupation from 1940 until 1944. Thousands of civilians also died at the hands of the German army.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4169963.stm

Mots pas très sages de M. Le Pen:(

I was in Geneva at the International Labour Office a few years ago when Le Pen was visiting a small town across the border. There was to be a demonstration against him so we decided to join in, show our solidarity. That demo has to be the most moving I've ever been to. No fighting or trouble of any sort, just most of the people of this small town, young and old, walking in procession, quietly, around the town. As a Gypsy and one of the 'forgotten' people of the Holocaust, I was truly humbled by the way this French town showed Le Pen he just wasn't welcome, and they were so very pleased that we, a group of trade unionists from England, had joined them.

Rose

liltoomean your french is perfect :)

During the last presidential election back in 2002, something unexpected happened, Chrirac and Le Pen won the first round !!! :eek:

For the first round, we always have a lot of candidates, and generaly, the leader of the biggest conservative party and the leader of the biggest left wing party, win and go to the second round. Then the one who gets over 50% wins the election.

2002 was the first time in France history we had so many different people in the first round. And most of French people were disgusted by their traditional politician leaders, so during the first round, they did what is called a "protest vote", and cast their votes on the different totally unknown folks running for the election !!

Most of my friends and I didn't do that, and voted for Lionel Jospin the leader of the Socialist Party. We thought there was a high risk with the protest votes, so we didn't wanna take any risk. The problem is that everybody was thinking that Jospin and Chirac will go to the 2nd round, and on Sunday 04/21 at 8pm when the TV gave the results of the first round, it was a BIG shock !! Chirac and Le Pen will go to the 2nd round !! :mad: Since there were so many candidates their score was very low around 20%, but still, Le Pen defeated Jospin by a 2 % difference !!! :(

My roomy and I were crying watching the results on TV, and everybody was calling everybody, and I went into a fight with my sister and my mother who voted for some completely unknown candidate who got like 3 % :rolleyes: I went into an argument with my father who didn't vote !! :mad:

That was a big day of SHAME for France !!! :(

Fortunately, people reacted to this, and a big anti Le Pen demonstration was organized throughout the country on 05/01. That was awesome, we were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in Paris, and millions of people in the country. People from all backgrounds, ages,race, walks of life and social position.

On 05/05, for the second round, Chirac was elected with over 80 % of the votes, something which never happened before !! It was like the result of an election in a banana republic !! :rolleyes: It was also the first time I voted for Chirac and the first time I voted for a right wing party !! :mad:

Here are some pictures of the 05/01 demo.

Phil

Thanks for this Phil; I remember it well. It's good when the passion of the people doesn't stand for such things and just goes to show the power and voice we all have especially if we join together. What a powerful thing to have been a part of.