Avant Zemmour, Marine Le Pen / April 10,
2017 :
Le Pen attacked for denying French role in
wartime roundup of Jews
Controversy follows remarks in weekend interview.
FRANCE2017-VOTE-FAR
RIGHT
Le Pen
triggered the controversy Sunday when she told a radio broadcaster that France
played "no role" in rounding up 13,000 Jews at the "Vel
d'Hiv" stadium in 1942 |
BY NICHOLAS
VINOCUR
April 10,
2017 12:56 pm
PARIS —
Marine Le Pen was under fire Monday for saying that France played no role in
rounding up Jews for deportation at a Paris stadium during World War II,
reigniting accusations of extremism against her National Front party two weeks
before the presidential election.
Le Pen
triggered the controversy Sunday when she told a radio broadcaster that France
played “no role” in rounding up 13,000 Jews at the “Vel d’Hiv” stadium in 1942.
French police officers carried out the operation under instructions from Nazi
occupying forces.
“I think
France is not responsible for the Vel d’Hiv,” she told RTL and Le Figaro when
asked if former president Jacques Chirac had been correct to recognize in 1995
that the French state had played an active role in the operation. “I think that
more generally, if anyone is responsible, it is the people who were in power
back then, it is not France per se.”
She added:
“France has been unfairly treated in people’s minds for years … We taught our
children they had every reason to criticize it … So I want them to be proud of
being French again.”
Her
comments prompted widespread criticism of her National Front party, accused of
staying true to a legacy of Holocaust revisionism despite efforts to present
itself as a mainstream political force. Marine Le Pen took over leadership of
the party from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who repeated two years ago that he
still believed the Nazi Holocaust was a “detail” of World War II.
“Nobody forgets
that Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen,” said centrist
candidate Emmanuel Macron, who is leading polls ahead of the election’s first
round on April 23. “We should not minimize or be complacent about what the
National Front is today in our country. So what she said was a serious
mistake.”By denying the responsibility of the French state in the Vel d’Hiv,
Marine Le Pen is joining her father in indignity and Holocaust denial,” said
Christian Estrosi, a conservative mayor of Nice, in southern France.
Conservative
presidential candidate François Fillon had no public reaction.
“Marine Le
Pen’s irresponsible behavior persists,” wrote the left-leaning Libération
newspaper, while the center-left Le Monde wrote: “Marine Le Pen shocks France with
her comments on the Vel d’Hiv.”
Specter of
Jean-Marie Le Pen
The
controversy raged on Monday as senior National Front officials faced grillings
about the comments on TV and radio shows. Le Pen herself issued a statement
late Sunday saying she considered France’s government was in London during
World War II, referring to the administration of General Charles de Gaulle, and
not in France with the Vichy-based collaborationist government.
“Marine Le
Pen said something obvious — France was in London, not Vichy,” National Front
electoral strategist Nicolas Bay said on Public Sénat TV channel. “Marine Le
Pen’s position is the same as all presidents of the 5th Republic.”
Critics
pointed out that Bay’s statement was incorrect. While former socialist
president François Mitterrand stood by the position that the Vichy government
did not truly represent France, his successor Chirac recognized for the first
time in 1995 that the roundup had been carried out “by French people, by the
French state.” Current socialist president François Hollande went a step
further by calling the Nazi-backed operation, which resulted in the
concentration camp deaths of thousands of Jews, a “crime” committed by the
French state.
Le Pen’s
reheating of old Gaullist ambivalence about the Vichy government looked
ill-timed, coming just as challengers gain momentum in a tight race.
Polls
currently show the National Front leader reaching the election’s second-round
run-off. But far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is enjoying a surge in
support, and now stands neck-and-neck with third-placed Fillon. Le Pen could
also lose support to Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, an independent hard-right candidate
whose anti-EU positions echo hers but without the troubling party history.
By
suggesting that France should stop claiming shameful passages of its history,
Le Pen may have been trying to reach out to historical party backers still
loyal to her father, Jean-Marie. But the controversy could put off other voters
who were unfamiliar with the party’s legacy.
Le Pen has
tried hard in the past six years to rid her party of its reputation for racism
and xenophobia, but the efforts were never entirely successful.
Jean-Marie
Le Pen was ousted from the party in 2015 for repeating his “detail of history”
remark, only to be reinstated earlier this year following a court decision.
Twice this
year, Marine Le Pen has had to answer accusations that her party remains rooted
in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
In March, a
documentary by TV channel C8 showed a regional Front official in the southern
Provence Alpes Côtes d’Azur region saying to a hidden camera that he “had
doubts” as to whether “so many” people were killed during the Holocaust. The
official, Benoît Loeuillet, who runs a bookstore that stocks revisionist
histories of the Holocaust, was suspended from the party, although it remains
unclear whether he will be fully excluded.
Then Le Pen
had to answer questions about why her party continues to employ people known
for extremist views or for anti-Semitic comments, such as Axel Loustau and
Frédéric Chatillon. The controversy followed reporting which showed that the
latter man, a university friend of Le Pen’s, was still on contract with the
Front despite being banned from having any “commercial ties” with the party.
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