Jean-Marie Le Pen retreats in Front National family feud

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Jean-Marie Le Pen retreats in Front National family feud

Kim Willsher in Paris
Monday 13 April 2015 11.08 BST

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the honorary president of France’s Front National party, has announced he will abandon plans to stand in regional elections this year.

The move comes after a bitter family feud that has set Le Pen against his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who leads the far-right party.

Relations between father and daughter degenerated into a public spat last week after Le Pen Sr, 86, reiterated his assertion that the Holocaust was a “mere detail” in the history of the second world war, and lauded the Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis, among other provocative statements.

Analysis Le Pen family feud is a battle for the soul of the Front National – and France
Far-right party in turmoil after lifelong outsider Jean-Marie Le Pen is asked to step aside by daughter Marine – with her eye on the French presidency
Read more
Marine Le Pen, who has spent five years trying to clean up the party’s racist and anti-semitic image, was furious. She called on her father to retire gracefully from frontline politics and said she opposed him standing as head of the FN list for the Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur region in elections in December.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/13/jean-marie-le-pen-retreats-front-national-family-feud

[bemildred]

1. France’s Jean-Marie le Pen Pulls Out of Regional Elections

PARIS—Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s National Front, has bent to the will of his daughter by stepping back from running in upcoming regional elections.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-jean-marie-le-pen-pulls-out-of-regional-elections-1428925311