French Far-Right Party Founder Le Pen Fined for Roma Comments

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front (FN) party, was fined 5,000 euros ($6,800) Thursday for accusing Roma of stealing "naturally".

A Paris court ruled the 85-year-old Le Pen, now honorary president of the FN, was guilty of publicly insulting a group of people based on their ethnicity after comments he made about the Roma at a rally in September last year.

Talking to party faithful, he had said about the minority: "We are like birds, we fly ("volons" in French) naturally". In French, the verb "voler" can either mean to fly or to steal.

The Roma minority largely come from Bulgaria and Romania, and are often stigmatized in France where they have been accused of being responsible for a rise in petty crime.

Several French associations were plaintiffs in the court case, saying the comments constituted a racial insult, while Le Pen's lawyer argued that his client was just joking.

Le Pen, the father of Marine Le Pen -- current leader of the eurosceptic and anti-immigration FN party -- has already repeatedly been convicted of racial hatred and Holocaust denial.

He has sparked outrage by calling for HIV carriers to be put into forced isolation, attacking France's World Cup winning football team for not being white enough, or, most notoriously, describing the Nazi gas chambers as a "minor detail" in the history of World War II.

But his 45-year-old daughter has started to revamp the FN since taking over the leadership in 2011, attempting to broaden the appeal of a party whose image has long been linked to the personality of Le Pen senior.

Under her leadership, the FN has expelled overtly racist activists and selected a number of ethnic minority candidates for local elections.

Critics say these steps are pure window dressing, and the party is struggling to shake off its racist image.

In the latest controversy, the FN had to drop a candidate for the 2014 municipal vote who compared the country's most prominent black politician, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, to a monkey.

Nevertheless, polls suggest the FN is set to score well in next May's elections for the European Parliament on the back of an economic malaise and insecurity.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has announced he will stand for election, as has his daughter.