France: Pen re-elected to National Front helm

Hajer M’tiri

PARIS: France’s far-right National Front party (FN) on Sunday gave its leader Marine Le Pen a third term while stripping its co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen of his honorary titles over controversial Holocaust remarks.

With 100 percent of ballots cast by the some 1,500 party delegates attending the party’s congress in the northeastern city of Lille, Marine Le Pen — the sole candidate — was re-elected president, and a new leadership structure as well as 100-member governing council was also named.

The party also voted by nearly 80 percent to strip the honorary roles from its co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was its leader from 1972 until 2011.

Le Pen, 89, who founded the party in 1972 and was runner-up in the 2002 French presidential election, had already been excluded from the party in 2015 by his daughter over repeated controversial remarks on the Holocaust, but had retained honorary roles.

This exclusion resulted in a lengthy court battle between father and daughter. Le Pen later clashed with her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen, who withdrew from politics last year, but is still seen by some as the heir apparent to the National Front’s political future.

Marine Le Pen is also expected to unveil a new name for the National Front to reflect a “change in the nature” of the party.

The anti-immigration and Euroskeptic party has suffered splits since its leader lost May’s presidential race to Emmanuel Macron, with many key party leaders leaving to form their own parties. (AA)