LONDON, Dec. 29 (JTA) — French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted for saying that the Nazi gas chambers were “a mere detail” of World War II. Le Pen, 69, was not present when a court in a suburb of Paris ordered him to pay about $50,000 to finance publication of the judgment in 16 newspapers. He was also ordered to pay symbolic amounts to 11 different human-rights and anti-racist organizations. The charges stem from remarks Le Pen made in an address in the German city of Munich on Dec. 5. “When you pick up a 1,000-page book on World War II, concentration camps take up two pages and gas chambers 10 to 15 lines — in other words, a detail,” he said. Le Pen, who denies that he is anti-Semitic, made the remarks while sharing a platform with Franz Schoenhuber, a former Waffen-SS officer and president of Germany’s far-right Republican Party, who has just published a book in praise of Le Pen. The charges against Le Pen, leader of the National Front Party, were brought under a 1990 French law that forbids the denial of crimes against humanity. Similar remarks by Le Pen to French radio and TV interviewers in 1987 elicited strong public criticism and a fine of about $1.5 million. A recent opinion poll indicated that the anti-immigration National Front Party would win the support of 16 percent of French voters in next March’s regional elections, which would be the highest percentage the party has received.
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