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Le Pen. No regrets
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Le Pen: Chirac shouldn’t have apologized for Jews' deportation

Speaking with readers of French newspaper, extreme-right presidential candidate says he regrets outgoing president's recognition of France's responsibility for deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps

French extreme-right presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen has said he regrets that outgoing President Jacques Chirac recognized France's responsibility for the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps.

 

"I regret it. He has been the sole president of France to do so. Even François Mitterrand didn’t," Le Pen said in a conversation with readers of a French newspaper, which published the report Sunday.

 

In 1995, Chirac was the first French president to recognize the responsibility of the French state for seconding the "criminal folly of the occupying country," in particular the help of the French police, which assisted the Nazis in the enactment of the so-called "Final Solution."

 

According to the European Jewish Press, Le Pen was answering questions from a reader who asked him if he regrets the manner the Holocaust is being taught in schools.

 

Le Pen answered, "It is a subject which I shall not approach. When I expressed myself in terms however moderate, this cost me 150 million Francs."

  

In September 1987, Le Pen declared that the Nazi gas chambers were "a minor detail of the history of the Second World War". He was fined then 1.2 million francs (183.200 euros) for having trivialized persecutions by the Nazis.

 

"Oh! I am not afraid to use this word. It is the only thing that they found to reproach me in fifty years of public life, while so many of my rivals dipped their hands into the public coffers and should be in jail," the report quoted the National Front leader as saying.

 

Also on Sunday, Socialist presidential candidate Segoline Royal accused presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy of plotting to make a secret pact with Le Pen, EJP reported.

 

According to the report, the latest polls put Sarkozy still firmly in the lead with 30 per cent, Royal second with 24 percent, Bayrou third with 18.5 percent and Le Pen in fourth place with 13.5 percent. However, 42 per cent of the electorate remain undecided.

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.16.07, 13:36
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