Le Pen pays for race slur

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the extreme-right political leader, was found guilty of violating anti-racism laws by repeating his view that Nazi gas chambers were "a mere detail" of the Second World War.

A court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre ordered Le Pen, president of France's National Front, to pay 300,000 francs (pounds 31,250) for publication of the judgement in six daily papers and six weekly publications. Le Pen, who insists he is not anti-Semitic, was also fined a symbolic one franc in damages.

The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism was one of several groups to file suit after he said in Munich on 5 December that he still believed the gas chambers were just a detail of history.

- Reuters, Paris