- PARIS - Jean-Marie Le Pen,
leader of France's far-right Front National, has once again caused outrage
by saying the Nazi gas chambers were "a mere detail in the history
of the Second World War."
-
-
-
-
-
- SHAKING 'EM UP - France's Front National leader, former
paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, remains defiant and unintimidated by Holohoax
litany.
-
- This time he repeated the assertion - almost verbatim
- in the European Parliament itself, to howls of derision from his fellow
MEPs.
-
- The repetition follows a scandal at the possibility that,
if elected, he would chair the parliament's inaugural session - by default
- because he is the oldest MEP.
-
- Because of European Parliamentary rules, as the "doyen",
or oldest, MEP, Le Pen would have the privilege of chairing the first session
of Parliament.
-
- Le Pen apparently flew off the handle after Martin Schultz
, leader of the Socialist parliamentary group, made "defamatory accusations"
against him.
-
- Schultz, with support from Europe's Greens, put pressure
on the Parliament to find any way possible to stop their nemesis from taking
center stage.
-
- Schultz said he was outraged "that a Holocaust®
denier should preside over the European Parliament's inaugural session".
He added that Le Pen was an "ageing fascist."
-
- 'Scandal'
-
- The scandal comes just months before the European legislative
elections in which Le Pen is expected to win a renewal of his mandate as
an MEP.
-
- Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a German Green Party MEP, told FRANCE
24 that Le Pen is "an obsessive madman and Holocaust® denier.
When he wants to gorge himself on anti-Semitism, he does just that. He
seems to be doing everything possible to stop himself from getting elected."
-
- Cohn-Bendit recognized, however, that MEPs enjoy parliamentary
immunity and that as an elected member his right to express himself should
not be limited, as "it would undermine the fundamental liberties of
the peoples' representatives."
-
- Le Pen was fully aware that he was enjoying parliamentary
immunity.
-
- The gas chambers issue is a favorite bone of contention
which Le Pen likes to dig up from time to time. He made the infamous comments
first in 1987 and repeated them again ten years later. He was fined 183,000
euros by a French court.
|