Le Pen stirs storm with ‘gas-oven’ jibe

Press, 5 September 1988, Page 8

Le Pen stirs storm with ‘gas-oven’ jibe

NZPA-Reuter Paris The French far-Right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, faces possible legal action after making an anti-Semitic sounding jibe which detonated a storm of protest across the political spectrum. The Justice Ministry asked State prosecutors to consider charging the National Front leader with defamation for “grave public insult” and to seek the lifting of his immunity as a member of the European Parliament. Mr Le Pen, denounced a year ago for calling the Holocaust murders of six million Jews a mere “detail” of history, dropped his explosive remark on Friday during a harsh verbal attack on Socialist Government Minister, Michel Durafour. “Monsieur Durafour, or

Dumoulin, or whoever he is, says (the Socialists) must ally with the Communists for the municipal elections because the Communist Party is losing strength while the extreme Right hasn’t stopped gaining,” Mr Le Pen said. “Monsieur Durafourcrematoire, thank you for that admission,” Mr Le Pen added. The expression “four crematoire,” French for crematory oven, was seen as an unmistakable, allusion to the ovens used by Nazi Germany for the mass extermination of Jews. Politicians of both Left and Right raised their voices in protest, including a prominent member of Mr Le Pen’s own party, Francois Bachelot, who called the remark “odious

and intolerable.” Mr Durafour, the Civil Service "Minister, said Mr Le Pen was clearly "nostalgic for the good old Nazi times” but since he held him beneath contempt, he would take no action. An unrepentant Mr Le Pen said Mr Durafour was “not only an imbecile but a son of a bitch” and added that he would not retract a single word. A Government spokesman, Claude Evin, said the gas-oven slur was "no slip of the tongue”; it reflected Mr Le Pen’s true sentiments. Alain Juppe, spokesman for the Right-wing Opposition Rally for the Republic Party, quickly distanced himself from Mr Le Pen, a potential ally, saying “there are words you don’t joke with.”