Rightwing Politician Sues French Newspaper for the Third Time for Publishing His Anti-semitic Remark

Romain Marie of the extreme rightwing National Front Party, who sits in the Parliament of Europe in Strasbourg, has sued the newspaper, LeMonde, for the third time since 1983, for publishing grossly anti-Semitic remarks by Marie.

The latest libel suit names journalist Patrick Jarrau of LeMonde and the newspaper for reproducing part of an interview he gave another LeMonde reporter three years ago. Among other things, he was quoted as saying that for Jews “the interests of Judaism are above those of French society” and “The Assassination International, that is the Communist International, was made up essentially of Jews.”

Marie now claims he never made those remarks. His lawyer contends that even if he had, they were taken out of context and had “no anti-Semitic character.” A ruling in the case is expected on July 2.

ACQUITTED OF ‘RACIAL DISCRIMINATION’

Marie was acquitted in October, 1985, of charges of “provocation and racial discrimination” based on his published remarks. He also won two libel cases he initiated against LeMonde in 1984 and 1985. The court ruled his statements were published out of context. In the latest suit, he has named LeMonde director Andre Fontaine along with Jarrau as guilty of “journalistic guerrilla attacks.”

Marie, whose real name is Bernard Antony, belongs to a fundamentalist Catholic group and his diatribes against Jews have become familiar. In 1983 he was quoted as asking: “Will there come a time when we will be able to speak of the Jewish problem as we do of the Basque problem?” He added, “We can simply observe sociological phenomena. There is a power that does not acknowledge its integration into France” and that power is the Jews, according to Marie.

‘JEWISH LOBBIES’ ASSAILED

Meanwhile, the extreme rightwing weekly Rivarol has attacked the “Jewish lobbies” for refusing to accept the possibility that the existence of Nazi death camps could be questionable. The periodical was referring to the recent furor over the granting by Nantes University of an academic degree to Henri Roques on the basis of a thesis which claimed the Holocaust was “a figment of Jewish imagination.”

Roques, 65, a retired agricultural engineer and amateur historian, received the highest grades for his thesis which shocked the entire academic community in France, including most of the faculty at Nantes. Education Minister Rene Maunoury has promised a full scale investigation.

Rivarol charged that the protests were intended to harm the rightwing National Front headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen and all “revisionist historians.” The magazine claimed “A similar maneuver has clearly failed in Austria where the hysterical accusations against Kurt Waldheim will probably help the former UN Secretary General more than harm him.”