Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Marine Le Pen Accuses Dad of ‘Political Suicide’ in Feud Over ‘Gas Chamber’ Quip

A bitter family feud between National Front leader Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie deepened on Wednesday as she accused the 86-year-old founder of the far-right party of sabotaging its efforts to move into the political mainstream.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who last week defended a past comment that Nazi gas chambers were a “detail of history,” was quoted on Tuesday as calling France’s Spanish-born Prime Minister Manuel Valls “the immigrant” and defending Philippe Petain, leader of the war-time government that cooperated with Nazi Germany.

“Jean-Marie Le Pen seems to have descended into a strategy somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide,” Marine Le Pen, who took over the party from her father in 2011, said in a statement issued by the FN in her name.

“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 said.

Marine Le Pen has tried to rid the anti-immigrant party of its anti-Semitic image and widen its voter appeal as she readies a bid for the French presidency in 2017. Polls suggest she could make it into the second-round run-off of a presidential election but is unlikely to win.

She added she would oppose her father’s bid to lead the party in the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur in December local elections where the party is hoping to make gains after strong performances in town hall and departmental votes.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s latest remarks came in an interview with the far-right magazine Rivarol. Contacted by Reuters late on Tuesday, he confirmed he had given the interview.

Marine Le Pen already distanced herself from her father last June after a quip about a French Jewish singer that included an implied reference to concentration camp ovens.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.