Excerpt:
French Jews accused a left-wing presidential candidate of encouraging Holocaust denial following his comparison of the Nazi persecution of Jews to the situation of French Muslims today.
Vincent Peillon, who is running in the Socialist Party primaries ahead of the elections this year, made the analogy Tuesday during an interview aired by the France 2 television channel.
Peillon, a former education minister who has Jewish origins, was commenting on a question about France's strict separation between state and religion, referred to in France as "laicite."
"If some want to use laicite, as has been done in the past, against certain populations ... Forty years ago it was the Jews who put on yellow stars. Today, some of our Muslim countrymen are often portrayed as radical Islamists. It is intolerable."