Jan. 12


FRANCE:

France's Le Pen Denouces Occupation


The Nazi occupation of France was not particularly brutal,
French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was quoted as saying.

The comments by the National Front leader were published in the small
extreme-right newspaper Rivarol.

``In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhuman,
even if there were a few blunders,'' he was quoted as saying. Such things
were ``inevitable'' in a country of 220,000 square miles, he said.

Le Pen's office confirmed the interview had taken place but said it could
not verify the exact comments, as no one had checked them against a
recording. The remarks were published in the paper's Jan. 7 edition but
did not come to wider attention until Wednesday.

CRIF, an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, said it was
``particularly shocked'' by the comments. During the war, some 76,000
Jews, including 12,000 children, were deported from France, many to
Auschwitz. Only 2,500 survived.

``These comments taint the memory of all victims of Nazism -- deportees
and the Resistance, and the entire French population, which was subjected
for more than four years to the most atrocious of occupations and
humiliations,'' CRIF said in a statement.

Le Pen, 76, has a history of making such remarks, and he has been
convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times. He once called
the Nazi gas chambers ``a detail of the history of the Second World War.''

The National Front leader blames immigrants, especially from North Africa,
for high unemployment. He wants to deport all illegal immigrants and
tighten border controls.

Le Pen startled France and the world by qualifying for a one-on-one runoff
against President Jacques Chirac in presidential elections in 2002.
Horrified voters rallied behind Chirac in the second round, giving him a
resounding 82 percent of the vote.

(source: Associated Press)