FN Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen Suspended from Far-Right Party
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Jean-Marie Le Pen, the eccentric founder of France’s National Front (FN), was on Monday suspended from the far-right party for making comments about the Holocaust.
It was not immediately clear how long the suspension would last, France24 reported.
Eighty-six-year-old Le Pen may also be stripped of his title as the FN’s honorary president after he last month repeated his view that the Nazi gas chambers were a mere “detail” in history, deepening a rift with his daughter, party leader Marine Le Pen.
A statement said that a special meeting of party members would be called "within three months" to decide if he should also lose the honorary status.
Le Pen responded furiously to the measures, saying it was a “criminal act”.
The veteran politician had on Monday been summoned to a disciplinary hearing at the headquarters in Nanterre, just west of Paris, but stubbornly refused to attend, calling it “detrimental” to his dignity. He also said he had no plans to retire from politics or tone down his opinions.
The hearing had been called by his daughter, who took the reins as FN party leader in 2011 and who has become increasingly frustrated in recent months by her father’s controversial remarks, calling them “political suicide”.
Le Pen senior’s comments have been especially damaging after Marine Le Pen has repeatedly tried to distance the party from its racist and anti-Semitic heritage as she plans a bid for the next French presidential election, in 2017.
“These [disciplinary] decisions show how far Marine Le Pen is ready to go to improve the image of her party,” FRANCE 24’s Jonathan Walsh said, reporting from the FN’s headquarters.
Opinion polls this year have suggested she will head the field in the first round of the presidential polls, but that she will not be able to muster enough support to triumph in the subsequent second-round ballot.
