The Simon Wiesenthal Center hailed the French government’s decision last Thursday to revoke a controversial doctorate granted to Henri Roques last year by the University of Nantes.
The 371-page dissertation questioned the existence of gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps and argued that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that the Nazis had ever gassed their victims during the Holocaust.
“The Wiesenthal Center applauds the decision of French Education Minister Alain Devanguet to throw out this bogus doctorate,” the Center said in a statement. “Further, we are pleased that French authorities have also ordered the suspension of Prof. Jean Claude Riviere, who headed the examining board which granted Roques the doctorate and who clearly failed to fulfill his basic responsibilities as custodian of a university’s commitment to the pursuit of truth.”
Last month, a delegation from the Wiesenthal Center protested the Roques Ph.D. thesis during meetings in Paris with French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac’s advisor on human rights and diplomatic affairs, Jean Pierre Lafon, and other French officials.
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