Vincent Reynouard appears in court ahead of extradition hearing

The convicted Holocaust-denier Vincent Reynouard appeared in court today.

Mr Reynouard, 54, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for a preliminary hearing in his ongoing bid to avoid extradition to France, where he faces imprisonment.

A new date has now been set for a preliminary hearing, in July, following delays to allow time for the content of videos, that are alleged to have been made by Mr Reynouard, to be translated into English, as well as other delays due to ill health on his legal team. 

Mr Reynouard has continued to post updates on his far-right blog, Sans Concession, despite being incarcerated as he awaits his extradition hearing.

It also is understood that, during his incarceration, a leaflet titled, “Holocaust? What’s Kept Hidden From You”, for the distribution of which Mr Reynouard had been convicted in France, has appeared online for sale on a British website.

Mr Reynouard was sentenced to jail for four months on 25th November 2020 by a court in Paris and again in January 2021 for six months, in addition to fines. His latest conviction is in relation to a series of antisemitic postings on Facebook and Twitter and a 2018 YouTube video for which fellow French Holocaust denier, Hervé Ryssen (also known as Hervé Lalin), received a seventeen-month-jail term earlier that year.

However, Mr Reynouard fled the country before serving his sentence and settled in the UK, where he reportedly worked as a private tutor teaching children mathematics, physics and chemistry. Private tutors are not required to undergo background checks.

In November last year, he was finally arrested near Edinburgh. In the intervening months, Campaign Against Antisemitism has been cooperating with French Jewish groups seeking Mr Reynouard’s extradition to France. Along with Lord Austin, an Honorary Patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, we have corresponded with police forces and prosecutors in the UK and Interpol in an effort to locate Mr Reynouard and bring him to justice.

Scottish police arrested him at an address near the Scottish capital, where he was apparently living under a false identity. He was brought before a judge on the same day and refused extradition to France.

Earlier this year, Mr Reynouard appeared in court where he was served with a second arrest warrant, as the French authorities had allegedly made an error in their application for the initial arrest warrant. Paul Dunne, Mr Reynouard’s lawyer, said of Mr Reynouard: “He does not consent to his extradition to France.”

Mr Reynouard faces a sentence of almost two years in a French prison, in addition to any further sentence in relation to other ongoing proceedings.

The Office Central de Lutte Contre les Crimes Contre l’Humanité, les Génocides et les Crimes de Guerre (OCLCH) — the arm of the French gendarmerie that specialises in hate crime and war crimes — has been leading the investigation.

Mr Reynouard’s first Holocaust denial conviction was in 1991 for distributing leaflets denying the existence of the gas chambers at concentration camps. Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990. He has been convicted on numerous occasions and his subsequent sentences include multiple prison terms and a €10,000 fine.

Mr Reynouard is alleged to have ties to Catholic fundamentalist groups that deny the Holocaust. In a recent analysis of the French far-right, the newspaper Liberation claimed that Mr Reynouard and Mr Ryssen are key members of a network of propagandists dedicated to the denial and distortion of the Holocaust.