PARIS (AFP-EJP)—A Paris court has rejected on Monday charges by French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, who sued former French Minister of Justice Robert Badinter for defamation after the latter accused him of falsifying history.

Faurisson, 77, a retired university professor, asked to pay 5,000 euros to the cover the court proceedings.

Neither Faurisson nor Badinter were present at the court hearing.
The court responded to calls from the public prosecutor, who asked for Faurisson’s demands to be rejected.

Faurisson had attacked Badinter for having insulted him last November in a television program when he declared: "The last action I brought before becoming minister was against Faurisson."

"I gained his condemnation for being a falsifier of history," Badinter then said.

He was referring to a judgment in July 1981 when Faurisson was condemned for having declared that "Hitler never ordered for anyone to be killed because of their race or religion".

During the hearing last March, Faurisson maintained that the "alleged Hitlerian gas chambers and the alleged genocide of Jews are part of the same historical lie".

Former French Justice Minister Robert Badinter

The president of the court recalled that Faurisson has already been condemned for similar statements.

“After this judgment one can honestly say that Robert Faurisson is a “falsifier of history,” Badinter’s lawyer, Henri Leclerc, said.

Lecture cancelled

In October, Faurisson was given a three-month suspended jail term for Holocaust denial over remarks he made on Iranian television.

In December, French President Jacques Chirac ordered an investigation into Faurisson’s comments made when he attended a Holocaust conference in Tehran.

Last Friday, Faurisson was barred from lecturing at the faculty of law at Teramo University in central Italy.

The university cited security fears surrounding the lecture when it announced the closure of its campus where the departments of law, political science and communications are located.

Faurisson was expected to speak at a local hotel instead, but that lecture too, was later cancelled after scuffles with protesters.