"Unfortunate gesture"

French mayor showed Hitler salute

After a French mayor gave the Hitler salute at a municipal council meeting, an investigation is now underway (symbolic image).(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Sylvain Robin)

A French mayor has shown the Hitler salute at a local council meeting. Philippe Gaudin had probably previously been accused of having worked with right-wing extremists in the past. After the incident, he spoke of an "unfortunate gesture."

Philippe Gaudin is the mayor of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, a municipality south of Paris with around 30,000 inhabitants. On Saturday, he gave the Hitler salute twice during a heated municipal council meeting about the budget. Prior to this, an opposition politician is said to have accused Gaudin of having made common cause with right-wing extremists in the past.

"Whim, not a gesture of allegiance"
For him, it was more of a whim, not a gesture of allegiance, said the mayor after the incident. His colleagues on the municipal council see things differently: "You have to call a spade a spade: This is an anti-Semitic act," said the deputy mayor, Emmanuelly Gougougnan-Zadigue, for example.

Here you can see a post by the deputy mayor about the incident.

Some called for Gaudin's resignation. They said he had tarnished the values of the Republic and had been guilty of misconduct for years. The mayor does not belong to any particular party, but can be categorized as belonging to the political right. The ball is now in the court's court.