French MP allegedly said Hitler didn't kill enough Travellers, he denies it

A remark allegedly made by a French MP who is also the mayor of the town of Cholet regarding several hundred Travellers who set up camp on municipal land there last Sunday has caused a sensation in France. French daily Le Courrier de l’Ouest reported that Gilles Bourdouleix, accompanied by four municipal policemen, visited the Travellers to eject them from the campsite. They greeted him with the Nazi salute and accusations of racism. He is alleged to have mumbled in response that "Hitler didn’t kill enough of them".

Bourdouleix (age 53), rejects the paper’s version of events and insists that he responded to the provocative Nazi salutes by saying "if I really were Hitler, they would all be dead". He has also promised to sue the daily for "damaging his reputation, defamation, and libel."

Human rights activists, on the other hand, have already filed criminal charges against the mayor for discrimination and inciting racial intolerance. Bourdouleix is also alleged to have cursed at the Travellers, who arrived in town with 150 caravans, calling them murderers, rowdies and thieves.

The mayor is known for proceeding harshly against illegal camping. However, the Travellers now in Cholet are in a hard situation because the campsite that has previously been reserved for them is momentarily undergoing repairs and cannot be used.

French law requires municipalities with more than 5 000 inhabitants to set aside land for use by Travellers. Agence France-Presse reports there are approximately 400 000 Travellers in the country, 95 % of whom are French citizens. 

The law is said to be "poorly implemented". The question is becoming even more sensitive in many municipalities because local elections will take place next spring and the ultra-right is expected to gain strength.

Two weeks ago, right-wing Mayor Christian Estrosi of Nice caused another big sensation when he called for a revolt against Romani people and Travellers during a radio interview. Left-wing politicians called his words an incitement to a pogrom. Christophe Sauvé of the Catholic Travellers Association warned that his people are afraid because after these challenges from Cholet and Nice "various cranks might feel justified in assaulting" Traveller families.

France has also been grappling with an influx of Romani people from Bulgaria and Romania in recent years. Both the previous government of Nicolas Sarkozy and the current government of François Hollande have been liquidating illegal Romani campsites and returning some of their inhabitants back to their countries of origin. This has been repeatedly criticized by NGOs and the European Commission, which says such treatment of EU citizens is discriminatory.