Fined again for racist comments Jean Marie Le Pen
The father of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been ordered to pay 5,000 euros ($5,300) after describing people from the Roma as smelly
An appeals court on Monday in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence found Jean-Marie Le Pen, the 88-year-old founder of the National Front (FN) party, guilty of inciting hate and making racist and negationist statements with the comments at a press conference in Nice in 2013.
Le Pen said at the time: "It appears you have a problem with several hundred Roma who have an irritating and, let's say, smelly presence in this city."
Le Pen lost an appeal against the conviction.
It was the ninth time that Le Pen, who infamously repeatedly referred to the Holocaust as a "detail of history", has been convicted of such offences.
"I stick by these terms because it is what I think," Le Pen said at an earlier hearing.
"Jean-Marie Le Pen's words were extremely serious and an open call to hate and ethnic discrimination," said Sonny Phung of the anti-racism group SOS Racisme, which will receive around $2,100 of Le Pen's fine.
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