PARIS (AFP-EJP)---A 38-year-old French chemical engineer was sentenced this week to one year in prison and fined 10,000 euros (14,600 dollars) for denying the Holocaust.

Vincent Reynouard was convicted by a criminal court in Salerne, eastern France, for writing a 16-page pamphlet in 2005 entitled "Holocaust? The Hidden Facts."

The work sent to museums and city halls across France described as "an old propaganda theme" the death of six million Jews during World War II, saying such an extermination was "impossible."

It was the heaviest sentence handed down to date for Holocaust denial in France.

He will have to pay 3,300 euros of damages to the plaintiffs.

Reynouard, who is today unemployed and lives in Belgium, was absent for the reading of the sentence.

The court did not called for his immediate arrest. His lawyer, Eric Delcroix, said he was appealing the judgement which suspends its execution automatically.

The lawyer added that his client "received this judgement with serenity and without illusion."

"The countries of the European Union are sinking into the suppression of freedom of opinion. We are not a free country anymore", he commented.

The condemnation is consistent with the charges of the public prosecutor calling Reynouard’s writings "insulting and hurtful for the community of citizens and not only for the victims."

A judicial inquiry had been opened against Reynouard after several people who received his pamphlet expressed shock at the author’s statements.