French perfume maker Jean-Paul Guerlain convicted on racism charge

A FRENCH court convicted perfume maker Jean-Paul Guerlain of making racist insults on national television and fined him £5,000 yesterday.

The 75-year-old Guerlain, an heir to his family’s cosmetics empire, provoked anger among French minorities with the comments in a 2010 interview on France-2 television. He used a French word for black people in a derogatory way as he described how hard he worked to create one of the company’s most famed perfumes.

Guerlain apologised. He was convicted in a Paris court.