PARIS — A Paris court upheld an earlier decision condemning extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen for “contesting” the Holocaust.

On Thursday a Paris appeals court upheld a 2008 decision, and said Le Pen was guilty of “the contestation of crimes against humanity.”

Le Pen was fined around 13,000 dollars and slapped with a three-month suspended jail sentence for saying in 2005 that, “in France at least, the German Occupation wasn’t particularly inhumane, even if there were some excesses — inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometers.”

Le Pen told the French news agency AFP he would appeal the decision. “It doesn’t surprise me [the ruling] comes during an electoral period,” he added.

Le Pen founded the National Front party, now run by his daughter, Marine, who is also vying for the French presidency, but has not been able to muster the 500 mayoral signatures needed to officially make it onto voting ballots in April.