Jean-Marie Le Pen Slams ‘Betrayal’ by Daughter Over Gas Chamber Quip

Image by getty images
French National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen accused his successor and daughter Marine of betrayal over her criticism of comments for which he was convicted of inciting racial hatred, and insisted he would run in regional elections this year.
His remarks, made in an interview with a far-right newspaper, could embarrass Marine le Pen as she seeks to widen the anti-immigrant National Front’s appeal ahead of an expected bid for the French presidency in 2017.
The two clashed a week ago over 86-year-old Jean Marie le Pen’s defense of past comments describing Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history,” for which he was convicted and fined.
Asked by far-right weekly Rivarol what he thought about the condemnations by Marine Le Pen and other party members of his comments, he said: “You’re only betrayed by your own.”
Contacted by Reuters, Le Pen confirmed he had given the interview and said, “You should expect anything these days.”
Since taking over from her father in 2011, Marine Le Pen has tried to rid the rightist, eurosceptic National Front of its anti-Semitic image and make it more palatable to mainstream French voters as she eyes the next presidential election.
Asked if he still wanted to run for the presidency of the southeastern Provence, Alps and Cote d’Azur region in regional elections at the end of this year after National Front members appeared to question that possibility, Le Pen said:
“I am a candidate to kick out the Social-Communists. Let me remind you that I gathered more than 33 percent of the votes in European elections in the Provence region less than a year ago.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Ben Shapiro, Emily Damari among torch lighters for Israel’s Independence Day ceremony
-
Fast Forward Larry David’s ‘My Dinner with Adolf’ essay skewers Bill Maher’s meeting with Trump
-
Sports Israeli mom ‘made it easy’ for new NHL player to make history
-
Communications The Forward Announces Gifts of Domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org by Elie Hirschfeld and his wife Sarah Hirschfeld, MD
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.