French Mayor fined for saying Hitler didn’t kill enough Gypsies

A French Mayor was fined 3,000 euros on Thursday for a racist outburst which  caused a storm of controversy.

In July 2013, Gilles Bourdouleix was touring a traveller camp where hundreds of caravans were parked illegally when he said “maybe Hitler hadn’t killed enough gypsies” during the Second World War.

He initially denied ever having said the words – until Ouest France, a regional daily Newspaper published the recording from its reporter’s dictaphone.

Prosecutors had asked for Bourdouleix, who did not attend the Angers court for the ruling, to be given a six-month prison sentence and a 5,000 euro fine for the French crime of praising historic crimes against humanity.

Europe’s Gypsies, who have been persecuted for centuries, suffered horrifically at the hands of the Nazis and their allies during the Second World War. Roma communities refer to the Holocaust as the “Porajmos”, and while the figures are uncertain – many of those killed were murdered indiscriminately – between 220,000 and 1.5 million were killed by death squads and in concentration camps between 1939 and 1945. Culled..