A French court has sentenced Vincent Reynouard, a notorious Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi, to 12 months in prison for denying war crimes, inciting racial hatred, and spreading antisemitic propaganda. The verdict, handed down by the Paris Criminal Court, followed a trial centred on Reynouard’s online content between 2017 and 2020.
In addition to his prison sentence, Reynouard was ordered to pay €10,000 in damages to the Jewish Observatory of France (OJDF) and the International League against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA). Both organisations had taken legal action against him over a series of inflammatory videos and publications.
One video from 2017, titled “Macron, servant of the Jews?”, described the Holocaust as a “false story” and denied Nazi involvement in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, where 643 villagers were murdered by SS troops in 1944. Reynouard claimed the French Resistance, not the Nazis, committed the atrocity—a conspiracy theory he repeated in other videos and his 2022 book Oradour, the Cry of the Victims.
OJDF welcomed the conviction and praised the legal team and magistrates involved, but it criticised the sentence as too lenient to deter others: “The denial of crimes against humanity is unacceptable in our society… Our vigilance remains intact,” the group stated.
LICRA also reported on the ruling, reaffirming its commitment to fighting Holocaust denial and antisemitism.
Reynouard, a former maths teacher, has promoted far-right ideology and Holocaust denial since the 1990s. He has repeatedly claimed that death camp victims were not murdered but instead were disabled individuals who died during transport. He has called Adolf Hitler “the most slandered man” and has openly sought to “rehabilitate National Socialism.”
His first conviction for Holocaust denial dates back to 1992, and he has faced multiple legal sanctions since. In 2004, he received a 24-month sentence, partially suspended, for condoning war crimes, although a higher court later overturned this specific conviction.
To evade further prosecution, Reynouard fled to the UK in 2015, where he was eventually arrested in Scotland in 2022, following a tip-off to French authorities. After losing his extradition case in January 2024, he was returned to France in February to face trial.
During the extradition hearing, Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, described Reynouard’s statements as “antisemitic racism” and noted they were deeply offensive, regardless of religious background.
Reynouard’s case underscores the importance of France’s 1990 Holocaust denial law, which makes contesting crimes against humanity a criminal offence. His prosecution is seen as part of broader efforts to counter rising antisemitism and historical revisionism across Europe.
The verdict has been welcomed by Jewish organisations, though many continue to call for harsher penalties to ensure that Holocaust denial and antisemitic hate speech do not go unpunished.
Photo credit: FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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