by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24 and Reuters, Paris
Latest update : 2015-05-01
France’s far-right National Front (FN) held its annual May Day rally in Paris on Friday amid divisions within the party over whether its founder and honorary president, Jean-Marie Le Pen, should be expelled from the group.
Scores of supporters gathered in the French capital to take part in the event, which the party has held for the past 27 years. The rally was temporarily disrupted after three topless Femen activists interrupted a speech by the FN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, by making Nazi salutes and shouting “Heil Le Pen”.Marine Le Pen has since announced that she will file a complaint against Femen.
The rally was further marred after FN supporters attacked journalists from French television channels Canal+ and France 5.
The two incidents have highlighted the FN’s reputation as a violent, fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic party, which Marine Le Pen has worked hard to abolish ever since taking over its leadership from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011.
Le Pen senior, however, has apparently done little to help his daughter’s efforts. Just last month, he made headlines after describing the Holocaust as a mere “detail” of history. His comments led to a very public rift with Marine Le Pen, who announced that she had launched disciplinary proceedings against her father. The hearing is due to begin next week.
The feud also raised deep questions within the FN over Jean-Marie Le Pen’s future, with supporters at Friday’s May Day rally divided along generational lines over whether he should be expelled from the party.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is ‘playing against his own team’
Ludovic, a 20-year-old student who travelled from the north of France to attend the march, said he felt as though Jean-Marie Le Pen’s antics have tarnished the party’s image.
“It’s time to turn the page on Jean-Marie Le Pen, he’s become embarrassing for the party to the point where he’s an obstacle for his daughter, who embodies modernity,” Ludovic told FRANCE 24, adding that he believed the far-right figurehead was “playing against his own team”.
Ludovic also said that Jean-Marie Le Pen threatened “to slow down the victorious momentum” of the FN, which has made steady electoral gains in recent years. “It’s time that he withdraws from political life, to make room for younger [supporters] by taking a well deserved retirement.”
“I don’t identify with his comments. His flamboyance must stop. He’s going too far. I don’t understand why he keeps stirring up trouble by constantly revisiting the 1940s,” Albin said, referring to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s most recent inflammatory remarks.
He added that the FN’s decision to hold disciplinary proceedings next week against Jean-Marie Le Pen was a step in the right direction.
“It proves that there’s no free pass within the party, even if you’re the father of the leader,” Albin said. “At the same time, they shouldn’t be too unfair with him, because the National Front owes him a lot.”
But Hélène, a 34-year-old baker from the Nice region in the south of France, was less forgiving of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
“He has a suicidal attitude towards the party, his remarks undermine the work of activists and tarnish our image among voters who are still hesitant to join us,” she said, adding that she would not vote for the FN nor join the party as long as Jean-Marie Le Pen was still around.
“We’re looking towards the future. With Marine, we’re aiming for victory. She could rise to power and save France. He embodies the past, he should go and leave the field open,” Hélène said.
‘The FN is not the FN without Jean-Marie Le Pen’
While many young FN supporters – who have flocked to the party ever since Marine Le Pen took over as leader – hold a firm opinion on Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party’s older supporters remain attached to him as a figurehead.
Patrick, 57, who is from Paris and currently unemployed, was among the throngs of people who took part in Friday’s march. He began supporting the FN in 2007, after having voted for “the left and the right”, and said that he hoped Jean-Marie Le Pen wouldn’t be sanctioned by his own party at next week’s disciplinary proceedings.
“I know that Marine is trying to reach a consensus, but no one has the right to silence Jean-Marie Le Pen. He has the right to express his ideas,” Patrick said, adding that he did not think there was anything “shocking” about the FN founder’s recent comments.
Patrick said he was convinced that the polemic surrounding Jean-Marie Le Pen had been instigated by certain leaders within the party “who had yet to prove anything”, in a thinly veiled allusion to the FN’s vice president, Florian Philippot.
According to Patrick, Philippot, who is a vocal critic of Jean-Marie Le Pen, “wants to push him out the door to appease the system”.
“You don’t touch the founder!” he exclaimed.
Another demonstrator, Sylvie, a 68-year-old retiree from the Paris region, agreed with Patrick. She said that she was at the rally to march alongside “patriots from all over France”.
A card-carrying member of the FN since 1988, Sylvie said that she rejected the idea that “the party’s emblematic figure, without whom the FN is not the FN, be humiliated like a vulgar student who has been summoned in front of his teachers”.
“What ingratitude towards the man, who, alone against everyone, shaped the FN for years, and without whom Marine would not have been able to get where she is. She shouldn’t forget what she owes him,” she said. “We owe him respect. He will forever embody our party and our country, even after he is gone.”
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