A French MP has caused outrage after he allegedly said "Hitler didn't kill enough of" the Roma people. Interior Minister Manuel Valls has asked for Gilles Bourdouleix to be prosecuted for "praising crimes against humanity".
A French MP has been accused of justifying crimes against humanity after he was quoted saying that “Hitler didn't kill enough" Roma people.
Gilles Bourdouleix (pictured above), a representative of the centrist party l'Union des Démocrates et Indépendants (UDI) for the town of Cholet, in Maine-et-Loire, was quoted in an article published on the Courrieur de l’Ouest website. The incident has sparked fierce reactions from French political figures.
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has called for Bourdouleix to be “heavily” sanctioned, saying his comments were "praise for the crimes of World War Two, it's praise for Nazis, and coming from a mayor it's unbearable."
At Valls's request, the local prefect's office has moved to file a lawsuit against Bourdouleix for "praising crimes against humanity", police said.
President of the UDI, Jean-Louis Borloo, promised to take steps against the deputy mayor that could result in his exclusion from the party. Borloo said that “nothing can justify going as far” as his party colleague did.
Mr Bourdouleix claimed his comments were taken out of context.
"I mumbled something like, 'if it was Hitler he would have killed them here', meaning, 'thank goodness I'm not Hitler and so there's no reason to call me Hitler," he told BFM news TV. "This is shameful score-settling which aims to smear me."
He has made a defamation complaint against the Courrier, whose editor has stood by the publication’s journalistic integrity.
Mr Bourdouleix’s comments have become embroiled in a larger debate on Roma communities, in the light of recent derogatory remarks by the UMP deputy mayor of Nice as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who labelled the Roma community as "smelly" and "rash inducing".
France numbers about 250,000-300,000 itinerant Roma, mostly French citizens. They have a special status that allows them by law to temporarily park their mobile homes in designated open-air areas with power and water hook-ups during the summer.
Source: France 24
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