AN AUSTRIAN neo-fascist was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after killing four people and maiming several more. Franz Fuchs, 49, said he was a member of the Bajuvarian Liberation Army which, he claimed, wants to reunite German-speaking peoples in Bavaria, the Alps and along the Danube.
He was found guilty by a court in Graz, eastern Austria, on all counts, including four murders and a dozen cases of causing grievous bodily harm with bombs, mostly hidden in letters. Court psychiatrists said he was a loner and the BLA was a figment of his imagination.In February 1995, Fuchs, a reclusive former engineer, planted a pipe bomb that killed four gypsies in eastern Austria. He was responsible for 28 further bomb attacks, but his most prominent victim was Helmut Zilk, a former mayor of Vienna who was outspoken in his support for refugees and ethnic minorities.

Mr Zilk lost his left hand in one explosion.Fuchs lost two fingers when a letter bomb went off at his home in December 1993 and in 1997 he lost both his hands when another bomb exploded just before his arrest in his home town of Gralla, 140 miles south-west of Vienna.He was banned from the courtroom during most of his trial after shouting racist slogans whenever he appeared in the dock. On Tuesday he yelled: “Long live the Bajuvarian Liberation Army. Long live the Germanic ethnic group.”He will serve his sentence in a prison for the mentally disturbed.The verdict on Fuchs comes after the Austrian far-right received its biggest electoral boost for years, with the xenophobic Freedom Party winning 42.1 per cent of the vote in the province of Carinthia last Sunday. The party’s leader, Joerg Haider, who once praised Hitler’s employment policies, is now the front-runner for the post of regional governor.. A LEAKY glass roof, bolts falling from the framework, and foundations sinking into the ground: the Grand Palais, formerly one of the most visited exhibition halls in Paris, is in “a perilous condition”, according to an official report leaked to the newspaper Le Figaro. The Palais, built with the Eiffel Tower for the Paris Exhibition of 1900, lies a stone’s throw from the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysees.

At the beginning of the century it distinguished itself by exhibiting artists who were excluded from the principal Paris museums: Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso.
Like its sister building across the river, the Grand Palais was the subject of a furious controversy during its construction. Parisians thought it ugly and out of keeping with the beautiful architecture of the city.This controversy remains today, as to what to do with the disintegrating building. The main nave was closed six years ago, when a bolt from the roof fell on to a Jean-Paul Gaultier designed snuff box, part of a design exhibition. Some want it knocked down, others fight to restore it to its former glory.Serge Louveau, former head of the Louvre and author of the leaked report, falls into the latter category. He estimates that it will cost about pounds 100m to repair the Grand Palais.The most urgent work is needed on the south section, which has sunk 15cm into the ground since its construction. “To stop this worrying development, we have to pump concrete under the supports of the Palais as soon as possible”, Mr Louveau said This may not be all that soon. The French Culture Minister, Catherine Trautmann, notorious for her slow response to problems, has had the Louveau report in her possession for two months.Furthermore the 400 million francs that would allow the initial work to proceed has been blocked by the Finance Ministry.