French lawmaker on defensive over Hitler reference

Paris: A French lawmaker is defending himself against accusations that he made an offensive reference to Nazi mass murder during a tense standoff with a group of Gypsies.

Gilles Bourdouleix, a Member of Parliament and mayor for the town of Cholet near Nantes, says that a recording of him saying "Maybe Hitler didn`t kill enough of them" during an altercation Sunday is a "manipulation and a frame-up" and he threatened violence against the reporter who released the recording. Speaking in an interview on French television station iTELE, Bourdouleix says that in the recording he was merely repeating a statement by the journalist. The lawmaker also says that if he encountered the journalist from Courrier de l`Ouest newspaper who made the recording "I`d want to give him a couple of punches." PTI