Marine Le Pen attacks father over Holocaust comments

The leader of France’s far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, has said she will block attempts by her father to stand as a candidate for the party in regional elections later this year.

A strategy somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide Marine Le Pen on her father

The move comes amid a fierce argument between Ms Le Pen and Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party, following comments he made trivialising the Holocaust and defending Philippe Petain, who led the Nazi-collaborator Vichy movement in the 1940s.

Ms Le Pen said in a statement that her father “seems to have descended into a strategy somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide”.

“His status as honorary president does not give him the right to hijack the Front National with vulgar provocations seemingly designed to damage me but which unfortunately hit the whole movement,” she added.

You’re only betrayed by your own Jean-Marie Le Pen

She said her father’s status as honorary president of the party “does not mean he can take the Front National hostage”, last week condemning Jean-Marie Le Pen for repeating a claim that Nazi gas chambers were “a detail of history”.

Family tensions

She added that his “crude provocations seem aimed at harming me but, alas, they have dealt a very heavy blow to the whole movement”.

Mr Le Pen repeated his views on Nazi gas chambers in a radio interview earlier this month.

He first made the comments in a TV interview in 1996, which led to him being convicted and paying a fine for inciting racial hatred.

On Wednesday he attacked his daughter’s comments, telling far-right newspaper Rivarol: “You’re only betrayed by your own.”

It was in that interview that he defended the Vichy leader Petain, who received a conviction following world war two.

It is the first move by Ms Le Pen to cut her father off from Front National, although relations were strained in summer 2014 after a comment he made about a French Jewish singer.

He created the party in 1972 and made it the most successful far-right, anti-immigrant party in western Europe.

Marine Le Pen, his youngest daughter, took control of the party in 2011 and immediately sought to expunge its anti-Semitic reputation.

The party now commands support of about 25 per cent in France, and Ms Le Pen is widely expected to take a run at the presidency in 2017.

Watch our report on Marine Le Pen from January below