French writer fined for saying Hitler should have finished the job

A French court slapped writer Alain Soral with a $13,000 fine and a suspended prison sentence of six months for saying the Nazis should have finished killing the Jews of Europe.

The sentence, handed down Tuesday, was over Soral’s Facebook post of last year about Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, two anti-racism activists who helped track down dozens of Nazi war criminals.

“This is what happens when you don’t finish the job,” Soral wrote about an article on a state honor conferred on the Klarsfelds by Germany.

A judge found Soral, who is a well-known writer in far-right circles and an ally of the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, guilty of “justifying war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Le Figaro reported Tuesday. Soral has had multiple previous convictions for minimizing or mocking the Holocaust.

The judge also ordered Soral to pay 5,000 euros, or about $5,600, to each of the Klarsfelds and 2,000 euros, or $2,250, to the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, which filed the complaint against Soral for his Facebook post.