When I arrived in Paris last week for a research trip, little had changed from my many previous trips. Though spring, the weather was drizzly and cold; despite the economic crisis, charming stores displayed tempting breads and books; and notwithstanding the “défense de fumer” signs, café terraces were dense with cigarette smoke. And while Marine…
(Reuters) — French National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen rejected on Friday a call from his daughter, the party’s leader, to leave politics over comments he made that she fears will hurt her push to widen the right-wing party’s appeal. Marine Le Pen said on Thursday she would seek disciplinary action against her father after…
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…
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…
(Reuters) — Tensions between French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie worsened on Thursday as the 86-year-old founder of the far-right party defended having described Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history.” Since taking over from her father in 2011, Marine Le Pen has tried to rid the anti-immigrant party…
A move by France’s ruling Socialists to ban the far-right National Front from a peace march for Charlie Hebdo shooting victims may backfire, forcing undecided voters to choose between Marine Le Pen and her rivals amid fear of Islamist attacks. President Francois Hollande’s Socialists called this week for a show of national unity on Sunday…
From the window of his Paris home, Michel Ciardi can see into the waiting room of a government welfare agency where a predominantly Arab and African crowd awaits government checks. A former communist, Ciardi once believed the scene at the agency was a necessary element of French efforts to help integrate new immigrants. But that…
(Reuters) — Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front admitted defeat on Tuesday after failing to win wide enough support to form a political group in European Parliament, dousing her ambition to lead an alliance of nationalists against Brussels. Concurrently, a damaging public feud between Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie worsened as the 86-year-old FN…
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