Mayor's Hitler comments against Roma stir controversy

A French city official has been sharply criticized for saying, "Hitler did not kill enough" semi-nomadic Roma migrants. Gilles Bourdouleix, deputy mayor of the town of Cholen, was quoted as making the comments on an online news website, France 24 reported Tuesday. Interior Minister Manuel Valls has called for Bourdouleix to be sanctioned, calling the official's comments "an apology for the Second World War, an apology for Nazism." Jean-Louis Borloo, president of the l'Union des Democrates et Independants of which the deputy mayor is a member, said Bourdouleix could be thrown out of the party. The deputy mayor made the comments after visiting a 150-caravan camp of an evangelical gypsy group outside Cholen. Bourdouleix claimed his comments were taken out of context and filed a defamation suit against the website. He retracted his claim after the website posted a recording of his interview, Radio France Internationale reported. Prosecutors are investigating whether Bourdouleix can be charge with "justifying a crime against humanity." Roma, or gypsies, have long been shunned in France. The mayor of Nice created a controversy last month when he ordered an illegally set up Roma camp in a sports field dismantled and vowed to "crush" the "delinquents."