Far Right French leader Jean Marie Le Pen went on trial today over allegedley pro Nazi remarks.
The Front National founder
is accused of describing the German occupation of France during the Second World War as not
especially inhumane. He faces a year in prison, a 32000 pounds fine and a possible ban from holding elected office if found guilty of violating France''s Holocaust denial legislation. It is the latest controversy involving Le Pen, 79, who has been convicted of anti semitism many times before. In 1987 he described the Nazi gas chambers as a detail of history. The case centres around an interview Le Pen gave the far right newspaper Rivarol, in 2005, in which he was quoted as saying, in France at least the German ocupation was not especially inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses, inevitable in a country of 55000sq km.