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CRIME

French MP hit with fine for Hitler Roma rant

A French lawmaker who was caught on camera saying Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler "did not kill enough" Roma gypsies was fined €3,000 by an appeal court in France this week.

Published: 12 August 2014 16:40 CEST
French MP hit with fine for Hitler Roma rant
A French lawmaker was fined €3,000 for defending crimes against humanity. Photo: Screengrab

A French court on Tuesday fined an MP €3,000 for saying that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler "maybe did not kill enough" Roma.

The appeals court in the Western town of Angers slapped the fine, equivalent to $4,000, on Gilles Bourdouleix, who is also mayor of the nearby town of Cholet.

The 54-year-old was involved in an altercation in July last year during a visit to a field in his commune that was occupied illegally by a travellers' community.

Accused of racism and assailed by Hitler salutes, Bourdouleix mumbled to a journalist that "maybe Hitler didn't kill enough of them".

A local French paper carried a report the next day with his comments and the resulting uproar forced him to resign from his party, the centrist UDI.

His comment sparked huge outrage, with then Interior Minister Manuel Valls calling for the lawmaker to be "severely punished" for the comments.

In January, he was convicted for condoning a crime against humanity and fined 3,000 euros but the fine was suspended.

But both the prosecution and Bourdouleix appealed, the latter saying he was innocent given the context in which he spoke. Bourdouleix also alleged the recording was tampered with.

The lawmaker had made controversial remarks about Roma in the past, including in November 2010, when he threatened to drive a truck through one of their caravan camps, and last November, when he said France was facing a "new invasion" from the community.

Confrontations between French authorities and Roma erupt frequently.

In August 2013 a Roma rights group based in southern France filed a police complaint against a Facebook page entitled "Adopt a Gypsy", for what it called the "flood of hatred" brought on by the page on the social networking site.

And later that month the cover story of a French magazine headlined "Roma overdose" about the problems caused by the Roma community caused outrage. 

SEE ALSO: Facebook under fire over 'Adopt a gypsy' page

France has a policy of systematically dismantling illegal camps and repatriating Roma of Bulgarian and Romanian nationality – a policy whose legality has been questioned by the European Union, the United Nations' human rights arm and other watchdogs.

The Roma, a nomadic people whose ancestors left India centuries ago, have long suffered from discrimination and are frequently accused of carrying out petty crimes.

They were killed in their hundreds of thousands by the Nazis during the Second World War, alongside Jews and homosexuals.

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CRIME

Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

An assailant on Thursday wounded two girls aged 6 and 11 in a knife attack close to their school in the east of France and was later arrested, officials said.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:33 CEST
Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

The 11-year-old was stabbed outside the school in the town of Souffelweyersheim, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, while the six-year-old was attacked by the same man nearby.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both girls are being treated in a paediatric hospital. Parents were later in the afternoon allowed to pick up their children, who had been confined to the school in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The attacker, born in 1995, was arrested in the area where he attacked the second girl, the police said. He no longer had the knife in his hand and did not resist arrest, it added.

The attack came as Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a series of measures aimed at cracking down on violence committed by schoolchildren against their peers. There was no indication so far that the attacker had a link with the school.

“I’m really scared. We’ve been reassured that the children are safe inside, but we don’t know when we’ll be able to get them back,” Sarah, a mother of an eight-year-old pupil, told AFP before the green light was given to collect the children.

“A friend called me. She saw the commotion in front of the school as she passed by. Her reflex was to call me so that I could pick up my son.”

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