An Irish man was handed a suspended sentence of six months in prison for threatening to kill a Jewish person near Marseille in August, French media reported on Tuesday.
The man, identified in La Provence and other French media as Patrick O’Brien, 60, was filmed in Avignon in August telling an Australian Jewish couple that he regretted Adolf Hitler had not “finished the job,” expressing hope for Hitler’s return and threatening to shoot the woman in the head.
He admitted intending to hurt the couple verbally after realizing that the man was Jewish. In court, he described himself as a “great humanist,” La Provence said.
The Avignon court convicted him of glorifying crimes against humanity and making death threats aggravated by antisemitic prejudice. He was ordered to pay €500 ($556) to each victim and €300 ($333) to several civil-party organizations. The court rejected prosecutors’ request to ban him from French territory for three years.
A lawyer representing the victims, Annie Cohen, said the sentence was excessively lenient, La Provence reported, noting that the woman’s father was a Holocaust survivor.
The incident had attracted widespread attention in France after a video of the confrontation went viral in August.
