Le Pen will 'never forgive' herself for excluding father from far-right party

Jean-Marie Le Pen tries to come back and steal the limelight with an impromptu appearance at an RN meeting in 2015.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she will never forgive herself for expelling her father Jean-Marie Le Pen from the party he founded and she rebranded, after he died last week aged 96.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was convicted several times for his openly racist and anti-Semitic statements, and had boasted of torturing prisoners during the war against Algeria.

When, in 2011, Marine Le Pen took over as head of the National Front (FN) party he founded four decades earlier, she quickly took steps towards making it electable – rebranding it the National Rally (RN) and cleaning up its image in a policy known as "de-demonisation".

Her father threatened to derail the strategy, reiterating remarks – first made in 1987 – that the Nazi gas chambers were "a detail in the history of World War II". She threw him out the party in 2015.

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"I will never forgive myself for this decision, because I know it caused him immense pain," she told the Journal du dimanche (JDD) newspaper in an interview published on its website Sunday.

"This decision was one of the most difficult of my life. And until the end of my life, I will always ask myself the question: 'could I have done this differently?'", she said.

Addressing such remarks, Marine Le Pen said: "It's somewhat unfair to judge him solely on the basis of these controversies."

Marine Le Pen, who has stood for president three times, is likely preparing another run in 2027.


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