Webcast News Service, March 29, 2003

A French court has ordered the publisher of France's leading encyclopedia to pay fines if it doesn't correct a passage raising questions about the number of people murdered in the holocaust. The court on Friday gave publisher Robert Laffont 15 days to prove it followed through with an earlier court order.

In a section on World War II death camps, the "Quid" encyclopedia cites revisionist historian Robert Faurisson, who claims that only 150,000 people died at the Auschwitz death camp. Most historians, as well as Nazi documents, place the number of deaths at Auschwitz at 1.2 million.

About six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis at various death camps during World War II. Rather than denying the holocaust outright, many holocaust deniers often seek to downplay the significance of the holocaust by claiming that the number of Jews killed was only several hundred thousand.

After France surrendered to Hitler in 1940, many French citizens collaborated with Nazi attempts to exterminate European Jewry. Following the American-led liberation and revelation of the French complicity in the holocaust, France passed a law banning the publishing of literature that denies or minimizes the holocaust.

Quid has been brought to court several times for publishing the false figures. In 2001, five French Jewish groups filed a complaint, saying the passage violated a French law against publishing revisionist theories. A French court ordered publisher Robert Laffont to remove the passage from the Quid by 2003, but the publisher failed to compy with the order. The Jewish organizations then demanded that Quid's publishers retract the 300,000 copies of its 2003 edition that had already been sent to stores.

In November, Judge Marie-Therese Feydau refused to grant the request but ordered the publishers to remove the lies from its 2004 edition as well as from its internet site.

Among other measures, publishers were also ordered to send a correction notice to all bookstores where the 2003 Quid is being sold, and to insert the correction in the 100,000 copies that were still being printed.

On Friday, the court found that the Quid failed to follow through with the order on the correction notices.

It gave the publishers 15 days to prove they inserted a correction in the 100,000 copies of the 2003 book, or face a fine of $3,200 for every day it violated the order. For every bookstore caught not posting the notice, the Quid is also subject to a $430 fine.

The Quid is widely consulted, not just by researchers but also by ordinary French people. A new edition appears every year.