Gayssot Act

The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (French: Loi Gayssot), enacted on July 13, 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of which Nazi leaders were convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945-46 (art.9). Proposed by the Communist deputy Jean-Claude Gayssot, it is one of several European laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. Its first article states that "any discrimination founded on membership or non-membership of an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a religion is prohibited." The law also requires the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (National Consultative Commission on Human Rights), created in 1947, to publish an annual report on the situation of racism in France.