Elder Le Pen sentenced again for Nazi gas chamber comments
PARIS - Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and former head of France's far-right National Front party, has been convicted of denying crimes against humanity for repeating that the Nazi gas chambers are a "detail" of World War II history.
A Paris court convicted and sentenced Le Pen on Wednesday to a 30,000-euro ($34,000) fine. He also will have to pay a total 10,000 euros in damages to three associations that were plaintiffs in the case, and the court ordered that the ruling be published in three major French newspapers at his expense.
The Paris court rejected his lawyer's argument that Le Pen was protected by his immunity as a member of the European Parliament and that he couldn't be tried.
Le Pen didn't attend the verdict in a crowded courtroom full of elderly members of victim and relative associations, with well-known activists and Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld and their son Arno, a lawyer, also present.
