PARIS (JTA) — A prosecution lawyer in the war crimes trial of Maurice Papon said the former French minister should get less than life imprisonment if convicted.

Arno Klarsfeld said that Papon was following orders when he ordered the deportation of more than 1,500 Jews from southern France during the Nazi occupation and that Papon had saved some Jews from being sent to their deaths.

Klarsfeld's attempt to absolve Papon of criminal intent stunned other lawyers representing the relatives of deported Jews.

The public prosecutor, as well as the other lawyers for the civil plaintiffs, denounced Klarsfeld's motion, and France's umbrella group for Jewish secular groups, CRIF, asked him to back off.

Extremist lawmaker must resign in France

PARIS (JTA) — France's supreme legal body has ruled that a member of an extremist party was illegally elected to Parliament and must resign.

The Constitutional Council said Jean-Marie Le Chevallier would have to step down, because of campaign spending irregularities, from the seat he won last June.

The resignation of Chevallier would leave the xenophobic, anti-Semitic National Front with no representation in the country's National Assembly.