Le Pen on trial for remarks about WWII
In France you can be head of a major political party that millions vote for but still not be free to say what you think:
“JEAN-MARIE Le Pen, the leader of the French far-Right National Front, went on trial at the weekend accused of condoning the Nazi occupation of his country. He was prosecuted for allegedly conspiring to justify war crimes in an interview with a magazine. The offence carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a E45,000 ($75,300) fine….
The 79-year-old provoked outrage when he told Rivarol, a weekly publication, in 2005: “In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses – inevitable in a country of 550,000sq km. “If the Germans had carried out mass executions across the country, as the received wisdom would have it, then there wouldn’t have been any need for concentration camps for political deportees.”
Rivarol editor Marie-Luce Wacquez, who is also on trial, said: “If you exclude the deportations, the occupation was pretty moderate compared with what happened in the Netherlands and Belgium.”
Le Pen’s comments were too close to the truth. The French and the Germans DID generally get on fairly well during the occupation. Widespread French antisemitism was one factor in that. And any reader of Trotsky will be aware that 19th century French “Bonapartism” was a precursor of Fascism.
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Posted by JonJayRay on December 18, 2007 8:13 am
» Filed Under Communism, History, News
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