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WORLD NEWS A9
Saturday 29 April 2017
Far-right candidate bedeviled by France’s Nazi history
ELAINE GANLEY to its darkest moments if French far-right leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen addresses supporters during an
Associated Press she defeats centrist rival election campaign rally in Nice, southern France, Thursday April 27, 2017.
PARIS (AP) The horrors of Emmanuel Macron, who is
the World War II Nazi death favored, and becomes the (AP Photo/Claude Paris)
camps moved front and next president.
center in France’s presi- Jalkh firmly denies French
dential campaign on Fri- media reports that he
day, nine days before the questioned whether Zyklon
election, reawakening the B poison gas was used in
anti-Semitic stigma that death camps. Lawyer Da-
has clung to the party of vid Dassa-Le Deist said he
far-right candidate Marine was filing a defamation suit
Le Pen and that she has against Le Monde news-
spent more than six years paper, which identified
trying to erase. his client as a negationist,
Transforming the National someone who denies the
Front into a voter-friendly Holocaust. Damage con-
party without compromis- trol was swift. Another party
ing its anti-system essence stalwart, Steeve Briois, may-
- which is her banner - has or of Le Pen’s northern bas-
been perhaps her tough- tion, Henin-Beaumont, was
est battle preparing for her named to replace Jalkh
dream job as chief of state. as temporary party chief
Her efforts, that included while Le Pen campaigns
showing her father, party in the critical final stretch
founder Jean-Marie Le ahead of the May 7 vote.
Pen, the door in 2015, took Le Pen has reversed the
a hit after remarks question- party’s slide into ideologi-
ing the Holocaust allegedly cal darkness, after a purge
made in 2000 by the man of the old guard, includ-
chosen to temporarily re- ing their master, Le Pen
place her as party chief sur- senior, when he repeating
faced in the French press. a statement belittling the
The reports threatened to Holocaust for which he was
undo her work nudging the convicted. But she has not
National Front from pariah fully succeeded in revamp-
status to respectability. ing the party’s image.
Le Pen - who once called In the 1990s, 70 percent of
Nazi death camps the the French said the Nation-
“height of barbary” -firmly al Front was a danger to
denied that anyone in the democracy - a figure that
party leadership would today has fallen to 58 per-
cast doubt on the exter- cent, according to noted
mination of six million Jews far-right expert Jean-Yves
and others, some deported Camus.
from France. Surmounting that stigma
“Let things be very clear. I is critical for Le Pen to ob-
abhor these theories,” she tain a majority in the final-
said in an interview on BFM- round vote and surpass her
TV. “There is no one in the rival, independent centrist
leadership of the National Emmanuel Macron, a for-
Front who defends this kind mer economy minister and
of thesis,” she said. banker favored to win -
Even without the cloud of and the rival Le Pen reviles
anti-Semitism casting its as the symbol of an elitist
shadow anew on the par- system she rejects.
ty, Le Pen, who took over “No, the National Front is
the National Front in 2011, not a party like any other,”
faces claims of racism for Macron said in the town of
evoking fears that Muslims Chatellerault. Fellow politi-
want to conquer France. cians who refuse to call on
A resistance was mounting voters to block Le Pen “are
with anti-Le Pen demon- making a deep, serious,
strations planned. moral and political mis-
But it was the alleged re- take,” he said.
marks 17 years ago of For Macron, the timing
Jean-Francois Jalkh, a dis- was perfect. He paid a
crete party vice-president visit to Oradour-Sur-Glane,
and longtime member, the village that has stood
which raised the question still in time since the 1944
of whether Le Pen risks Nazi massacre of 642 of its
throttling France backward inhabitants.q
