PARIS (AP) — A tempest has been unleashed upon the House
of Le Pen, the seat of France’s rising far right, with the wounded
patriarch and founder of the National Front lashing out at his political
heir and daughter in a feud over an anti-Semitic smear.
A public
dressing-down of Jean-Marie Le Pen shows how far his daughter, Marine Le
Pen, is prepared to go make the party a cornerstone of the French
political landscape and loft her into her dream job, the presidency.
"My
daughter has put a knife in my back," the nearly 86-year-old Jean-Marie
Le Pen said after being banished from the anti-immigration party’s
website Tuesday and entombed in a wall of silence by party officials
including his daughter.
"If I piss them off, they have only to
kill me," Le Pen told a cultural publication, Les Inrockuptibles. "I
will not commit suicide."
The Shakespearean-like drama began over
the weekend after Le Pen made a remark in a video on his weekly blog
widely interpreted as a derogatory allusion to the Holocaust. Referring
to artists who’ve said they won’t perform in French towns run by the
National Front — namely actor-singer Patrick Bruel, who is Jewish — Le
Pen said, "We’ll put a batch in the oven the next time."
Marine Le
Pen called her father’s remark a "political mistake." For critics, it
was a light reprimand for a man who has been convicted numerous times
for anti-Semitic statements and racism. But on Tuesday night, a top
party official, lawyer Wallerand de Saint Just, announced that Le Pen’s
blog would no longer appear.
The National Front’s founding father risks posing an "important danger" to Marine Le Pen, Saint
Just said.
"We are taking precautions," he added.
Le
Pen denies his remark was intended as anti-Semitic, and in a statement
said those who think so are "political enemies or imbeciles."
He
kept up the charge Wednesday night, saying he planned an open letter
Thursday to his daughter, who hasn’t communicated with him, seeking a
return to the status quo — the return of his blog — calling it an "offer
of peace."
In an interview with the daily Le Monde, he said the sanction was "illegitimate."
"To
criticize a Jew, or to respond to him, is not being anti-Semitic They
are citizens like others," he said, adding that Marine Le Pen and other
party officials "fear being accused of the absolute crime of
anti-Semitism."
The feud spills beyond the tightly knit family to
the goals of Marine Le Pen. The 46-year-old National Front leader, in
charge since 2011, aspires to the French presidency and is working to
put together a powerful extreme-right group in the European Parliament.
She
led the anti-EU party to victory in European elections last month it
made significant gains in municipal elections two months earlier.
Her
successes have been due in part to transforming the National Front from
a pariah, whose supporters often lied about voting for it, into an
acceptable political alternative to the governing Socialists and
conservative rivals. While she rants against Muslim immigrants, she has
come down hard on references to anti-Semitism.
Jean-Marie Le Pen,
bombastic, charismatic and known for skidding into controversy, has been
under watch as the party refashions its image. On one occasion, he
caused a minor panic after a news conference by Marine Le Pen as he held
forth with a bevy of journalists. His frank talk sent officials
scurrying in to quiet him.
Now, he refuses to fade quietly away.
Le
Pen warned on Tuesday night that the new, young, and more politically
correct party leaders who were hand-picked by Marine Le Pen "are
shooting themselves in the foot" — a clear reference to the risk he
thinks his daughter will run if she distances his old guard,
whose
votes she needs.
The destinies of Le Pen the elder and his
daughter, whom he dubbed his successor, appear bound by both
heartstrings and politics.
The elder Le Pen has spent the past
half-century as France’s most contested political leader, but has strong
support. He was easily re-elected to the European Parliament, winning a
race in the southeast with nearly eight percentage points more than his
closest contender.
In a dig at his daughter, Le Pen derided a
National Front grouping she created — the Blue Marine Rally — as a
"strange formation without substance." The Rally has served as a conduit
for voters not prepared to be card-carrying party members.
The
feud is especially complicated because the party is a family enterprise.
Marine Le Pen lives with her three children on his estate. Marion
Marechal-Le Pen, the 24-year-old granddaughter of the party founder, and
Marine’s niece, is one of the party’s two lawmakers in the French
parliament.
Marine Le Pen has called out the troops to explain
what party vice-president Florian Philippot played down as an
"artificial argument."
Ever defiant, Jean-Marie Le Pen says he
will simply transfer his weekly blog onto his personal site, and insists
that as the party’s honorary "president for life," he cannot be forced
into retirement.