Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Front (FN), rebuked her father and former party leader yesterday for remarks reviving long-standing allegations of anti-Semitism soon after a major poll victory.
Ms Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigrant and anti-EU party from Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011, said a controversial quip he made about a French Jewish singer that included an implied reference to concentration camp ovens had been misinterpreted.
But for an experienced politician like her father, she said, “not to have foreseen how this phrase would be interpreted is a political mistake the National Front is [now] paying for”.
Ms Le Pen, who has made the FN more acceptable to voters by playing down some hardline traditions, led the party last month to first place in French voting for the European Parliament, the first time it has won a nationwide poll.
French and European Jewish groups denounced her father’s comments as anti-Semitic. Another prominent leader of the FN, speaking out before Ms Le Pen, said his attack was “politically stupid and deplorable”.
The controversy began on Friday with a video posted on the FN website in which Mr Le Pen lashed out at several celebrities – including Madonna, French comedian Guy Bedos and tennis star Yannick Noah – for expressing alarm that the party had swept 25 per cent of the European Parliament vote.
Reminded by his interviewer that Jewish singer Patrick Bruel was among the critics, Mr Le Pen chuckled and said: "That doesn't surprise me. Listen, we'll do up a batch next time." Mr Le Pen has often used wordplay to hint at anti-Semitic views. His word for "batch" – fournée – is a baking term originally meaning "ovenful".
He was convicted of inciting racial hatred in 1996 for saying the gas chambers used to kill Jews in the Holocaust were “merely a detail in the history of the second World War.” – (Reuters)