The rift deepens between one of France's most controversial families as the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen is voted out of the party he founded.
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One of France’s most famous family feuds has been rekindled.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the
National Front movement has vowed to fight to stay in the party his daughter leads, despite an executive committee voting to oust him for a second time.
Speaking shortly before the vote, he said:
“To be persecuted by the leadership of the political movement you have founded, particularly when the president of the movement is your daughter, is very difficult.”
The Honorary Party President triggered the showdown by repeating his view that the Nazi gas chambers were a “mere detail” of the Second World War.
In 2015 alone, courts have twice ruled as illegal the National Front’s attempts to sideline Jean-Marie, who has also launched a series of attacks on his daughter and party leader Marine.
He claims he hasn’t received official notification of the decision to exclude him, but says when he does he will contest it, as he has done previously.
Watchers say it is the far-right party’s latest attempt to neutralise a family feud that could hurt his daughter’s bid for the 2017 presidential election.