LYON (AFP)--- The deputy leader of France’s extreme-right National Front (FN) party, Bruno Gollnisch, went on trial Tuesday for "disputing crimes against humanity" over comments he made two years ago on the Holocaust.

Gollnisch, 56, who is a member of the European parliament, faces a possible year in jail if he is found guilty after two days of hearings.

In October 2004 Gollnisch said at a press conference that he did not "question the deportations (nor) the hundreds of thousands, the millions of dead ... As for the way they died, there has to be debate."

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He went on: "I do not deny the existence of deadly gas chambers. But I am not a specialist on this, and I think we should leave historians to discuss it. And this discussion should be free."

Around 30 demonstrators were outside the courthouse in the southeast city of Lyon, waving banners in support of the accused and chanting "Freedom to Teach, Freedom of Expression."

Gollnisch, a professor of Japanese at Lyon University, was suspended from his post for five years as a result of his remarks.

A leading candidate for the eventual succession to the FN’s historical leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Gollnisch told journalists at the courthouse that he was "outraged by the ferocity of the judicial system. There was absolutely nothing reprehensible about my remarks."