The far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is headed to court for injudicious comments he made last year about the Nazis’ wartime activities in France. The trial will decide whether he is guilty of “complicity in contesting crimes against humanity and complicity in justifying war crimes” by telling a right-wing weekly magazine last year that “in France, at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, although there were some blunders, inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometers.” Mr. Le Pen has been fined twice for dismissing the Holocaust as a “detail” of history. Denying the Holocaust is a crime in France, punishable by fines or prison.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company