Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux's lawyer said he would appeal the conviction in a Paris court for "private insults of a racial nature." He was also fined 750 euros ($900) and ordered to pay 2,000 euros ($2,400) to an anti-racism group.

Hortefeux was caught on camera last year making what sounded like anti-Arab remarks, prompting calls for his resignation and lawsuits by anti-racism groups. Hortefeux insists his words were innocent and misconstrued.

It has been an ugly controversy for Hortefeux, a former immigration minister in a country where tensions between minority youth and police occasionally erupt in violence. Hortefeux has pushed to keep out and expel illegal immigrants.

A video circulating on the Internet showed Hortefeux at an event last September in southwest France for the governing UMP party, having his picture taken with a young party member of North African origin.

A woman's voice is heard saying "it's our little Arab," and Hortefeux is heard saying: "We always need one. When there's one, that's all right. It's when there are a lot of them that there are problems." Hortefeux's office said later the remark was a reference to the many photos taken at the event. The incident occurred shortly after Hortefeux suspended a top regional official for racist comments.

Hortefeux's comment "is incontestably offensive, if not contemptuous, for the people concerned," the court said in its ruling Friday, adding that the minister's body language shows he "did not want to be heard by others beyond this circle of friends."

The lawyer for the anti-racism group MRAP, Pierre Mairat, welcomed the ruling. "These are inadmissible remarks," he said.

France's official Muslim council has meanwhile warned the government not to expect it to impose a planned ban on full face veils for women that legal experts argue will be unconstitutional and police predict will be unenforceable.

Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), said his group opposed the full veil and would try to convince the tiny minority of veiled women that it was not a religious obligation and was out of place in France.

But Muslim leaders could not act as agents of the state during a six-month "mediation period" during which veiled women will be stopped and informed about the law but not fined.

The draft law, due to be passed this autumn, bans wearing full veils in public. After the mediation period, veiled women must pay a 150 euro ($182.8) fine or take "citizenship lessons" while anyone found forcing them to veil risks a 15,000 euro fine.

"It will be very hard to apply," Moussaoui told journalists on Thursday. "The CFCM has said it's ready to work for this, but not as someone mandated by the state. It's the duty of society to shoulder its responsibility for the mediation."

Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has said she would depend on the police, the CFCM and local civic associations to convince covered women their veils violated French values.

Police unions have warned that stopping veiled women in the street could lead to chaotic scenes and protests. "There will be lots of refusals, it will degenerate into insult and outrage, they'll be detained and families will gather outside the police station," Yannick Danio of the Unite SGP-Police union told the newspaper Le Monde. Other critics of the ban have said radical Muslims might provoke such confrontations to extend their influence.