A judgment amounting to $18,150 has been imposed on the French right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen for slurring Holocaust victims.
It was the second time this month the leader of the racist National Front was fined for the same offense, committed on different occasions.
An appeals court in Versailles has ordered him to pay 100,000 francs, the equivalent of $18,150, to each of nine organizations representing former deportees, plus a nominal 10 francs to MRAP, an organization fighting racism.
On March 11, a court in Nanterre fined Le Pen about $2,000 for insults he made in 1988 to a member of the French government, which included a slur on the victims of gas chambers.
After the latest judgment, Bruno Megret, one of his aides, complained that it is now a crime to express an opinion.
Meanwhile, an instructor suspended by Lyon University for casting doubt on the Holocaust was restored last week to his economics lectureship by the Ministry of National Education, the highest educational authority of France.
The ministry decided that the suspension of Bernard Notin for one year at half pay was illegal. Nevertheless, it ruled that he cannot be considered for promotion for three years.
Notin gained notoriety last year for publishing an article in a magazine sponsored by the French National Scientific Research Center in which he denied that Nazi gas chambers existed.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
