The French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen provoked outrage among British veterans yesterday when he compared the September 11, 2001, attacks on America to RAF-led bombing raids during World War II.

The National Front leader and presidential candidate said both were "terrorist acts as they expressly targeted civilians to force military leaders to capitulate."

In hugely controversial comments, Mr. Le Pen, who is 79, also dismissed the atrocities in 2001 as a mere "incident."

He told the Roman Catholic newspaper La Croix: "Three thousand dead — that is how many die in Iraq in a month, and it's far less than the deaths in the Marseille or Dresden bombings at the end of the Second World War."

Praising those Muslims who condemned the attacks on New York and Washington, Mr. Le Pen said: "The September 11 event, or one could say incident, prompted a certain number of people to distance themselves" from Islamic extremism "to avoid falling under the barrage of accusations that was unleashed."

British World War II veterans reacted with anger toward Mr. Le Pen's comments about the RAF.

"They are inappropriate and wrong," a retired squadron leader and Battle of Britain veteran, Bam Berger, said.

"Our sole objective during the Second World War was to defeat the Germans who had tried to invade Britain."

Arthur Titherington, who spent much of the war in a Japanese prisoner of war camp after surviving a Luftwaffe bombing raid on Birmingham, said: "The Germans bombed the hell out of us.

"Our servicemen were not politically motivated. We were fighting for our country. There is no comparison between terrorists and the RAF.

"Le Pen's comments are outrageous but probably typical of French attitudes."

The far-right leader is no stranger to controversy. He was convicted of Holocaust denial after he declared in 1987 that the gas chambers used by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews were a "detail in the history of the Second World War."

Although renowned for his extreme views, Mr. Le Pen remains one of the most influential politicians in France.

During the 2002 presidential elections, he qualified for the second round of voting for a head-to-head against Jacques Chirac, after winning nearly 17% of the nationwide poll.

He is taking part in his fifth and last presidential campaign ahead of the April-May election. The latest CSA poll puts him on 14% of the first round vote.

British and American bombers targeted the German city of Dresden in February 1945, killing upwards of 35,000 people and destroying thousands of homes.

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