Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s
far-right National Front, has openly split with her father and the
founder of her party, calling his recent comments, including those on
German gas chambers, “political suicide” and an attempt to harm her.
But Mr. Le Pen made headlines over the last week, after he once again claimed that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail” of history; praised the France’s collaborationist wartime leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain; and questioned whether France’s Spanish-born prime minister, Manuel Valls, was really loyal to France.
Read more: Marine Le Pen, Leader of France’s National Front Party, Splits With Her Father, Its Founder - NYTimes.com
In
recent years, Ms. Le Pen, trying to clean up the image of her party as
racist and anti-Semitic, has kept her distance from her father,
Jean-Marie
Le Pen, 86, and his more extreme statements, even as he continued as the party’s honorary chairman.
But Mr. Le Pen made headlines over the last week, after he once again claimed that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail” of history; praised the France’s collaborationist wartime leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain; and questioned whether France’s Spanish-born prime minister, Manuel Valls, was really loyal to France.
“Jean-Marie
Le Pen seems to have descended into a strategy somewhere between
scorched earth and political suicide,” she said. “His status as honorary
president does not give him the right to hijack the National Front with
vulgar provocations seemingly designed to damage me but which
unfortunately hit the whole movement.”
She
added that, with great sadness, she was calling a meeting of the
party’s executive bureau with her father present “to find the best way
of protecting the interests of the movement,” a statement that some
experts took to mean that Mr. Le Pen may be expelled from the party
altogether
Ms.
Le Pen’s deputy and the party’s chief spokesman, Florian Philippot,
soon said in a Twitter message, “The split with Jean-Marie Le Pen is now
irrevocable and definitive.”
Read more: Marine Le Pen, Leader of France’s National Front Party, Splits With Her Father, Its Founder - NYTimes.com
