Le Pen sentenced for denying severity of Nazi occupation
Far right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was given a three month suspended sentence today for denying the brutality of the wartime Nazi occupation.
A Paris court also fined him ?9,740 for his remarks about life during the Second World War.
Le Pen was convicted on charges of "complicity in justifying war crime" and "complicity in contesting a crime against humanity" for comments he made during a 2005 interview with the far-right weekly Rivarol.
The magazine quoted Le Pen as saying: "In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a few blunders, which is inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometres."
The court also fined the director of Rivarol magazine ?3,360.
