French MP says "maybe Hitler didn't kill enough" Travellers

Gilles Bourdouleix, pictured above, was involved in a confrontation with Travellers near the town of Cholet when he was recorded saying "maybe Hiler didn't kill enough of them"

A FRENCH MP faces prosecution after suggesting that Hitler did not kill enough Gypsies during the Holocaust.

During a confrontation with Travellers, Gilles Bourdouleix, who serves as mayor in the town of Cholet in western France, was recorded on Sunday saying "maybe Hitler didn't kill enough of them".

It is estimated that anywhere between 200,000 and 1.5 million Romani people were murdered across Nazi occupied Europe during World War II.

M. Bourdouleix has defended himself by claiming he was merely repeating words uttered by the journalist who recorded him.

Local newspapers also claimed that the politician had become "exasperated" after Travellers taunted him with Hitler salutes, and that he had made the remarks out of emotion.

However, the French Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, called the remarks "unacceptable" and said that he should be punished "very severely".

M. Bourdouleix may also be expelled from his party, the Union of DDemocrats andd Independents, or UDI, as a result of his remark.

Party leader Jean-Louis Borloo condemned the comments, and UDI party secretary Jean-Christophe Lagarde tweeted: "Even if [made] out of emotion, Bourdouleix's remarks are intolerable and incompatible with our values ​​and with being part of the UDI. The only possible sanction is the expulsion from the party."

The BBC has stated that the Travellers were stopping in the area without permission, and that they were members of the Vie et Lumière Pentecostal movement.

The movement's British offshoot, Light and Life, counts many Romany Gypsies among its members.