Le Pen faces prosecution over Nazis 'not inhuman' claim

Extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was facing prosecution today after saying the Nazi occupation of France was not particularly brutal.

The 76-year-old was unapologetic, saying it is “scandalous” that people are not free to air their views on the subject.

He called himself a “defender of freedom of thought”, denouncing a “veritable political control of thought” in France.

Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, told an extreme-right wing paper that the Second World War Nazi occupation “was not particularly inhuman, even if there were a few blunders”.

Justice Minister Dominique Perben called the remarks ”abject” and said that Le Pen “must explain himself before a court”.

The minister said that he had asked the Paris prosecutor to open proceedings.

Perben cited various Nazi crimes in France, from deportations of Jews to massacres like the one in the central France village of Oradour-sur-Glane in which 642 men, women and children were killed.

He said it was “abject” to consider such Nazi actions as ”blunders” and said Le Pen has “disqualified himself as a politician”.

But Le Pen insisted: “I am a defender of freedom of thought, freedom of judgement. It is rather scandalous that, 60 years later, one cannot express oneself in a coherent and calm way on these subjects and freely pass judgment on the facts of the occupation.”

CRIF, An umbrella group of French Jewish organisations, said it was “particularly shocked” by the comments.

During the war, 76,000 Jews, including 12,000 children, were deported from France, many to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Only 2,500 survived.

“These comments taint the memory of all victims of Nazism – deportees and members of the Resistance, and the entire French population, which was subjected for more than four years to the most atrocious of occupations and humiliations,” CRIF said in a statement.

Le Pen has a history of making remarks that jar France, and has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times. Once he called the Nazi gas chambers “a detail of the history of the Second World War”.

He shocked France and the world by qualifying for a one-on-one runoff against President Jacques Chirac in presidential elections in 2002. Horrified voters from the left and right rallied behind Chirac in the second round, giving him a resounding 82% of the vote.