Why the participation of the National Rally in Sunday’s march is controversial

Why the participation of the National Rally in Sundays march

The presidents of the Assembly and the Senate call for “ stop unnecessary controversies » around the march against anti-Semitism that they are organizing this Sunday in Paris. This “ moment of national unity ” is a “ individual, independent and civic approach », Write Yäel Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, in response to the outcry caused by the announced participation of elected representatives of the National Rally in this march. Marine Le Pen’s party is caught up in its history.

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I don’t believe Jean-Marie Le Pen was anti-Semitic “. By seeking to clear Marine Le Pen’s father last Sunday on BFMTV, Jordan Bardella, the current boss of the RN, brought back a past that his daughter has been trying hard to forget for almost ten years. That of a party co-founded by Pierre Bousquet, a former member of the Waffen-SS and led for nearly forty years by a man whose career was continually punctuated by anti-Semitic provocations.

At the end of the 1960s, Jean-Marie Le Pen was convicted of apologizing for war crimes after having published a record of songs from the Third Reich. A few years later, he estimated that the German occupation “ was not particularly inhumane », makes a play on words with the name of Minister Michel Durafour (“ Durafour crematorium “). More recently, he appears alongside comedian Dieudonné.

Jean-Marie Le Pen excluded from the party he founded in 2015

In 2015, he reiterated his comments on the Shoah, a “ detail of the story “, according to him. It was at this time that the multi-convicted Jean-Marie Le Pen was disowned by his daughter and suspended from the party. So begins for Marine Le Pen a slow work of demonization. Which will probably never erase a cumbersome past. Especially since she assumes part of her father’s inheritance.

Last year, it was the fiftieth anniversary of the National Front that the three-time unsuccessful presidential candidate celebrated during a conference at the National Assembly. Among the historical members of the RN was Bruno Gollnisch, slayer of the Gayssot laws which penalize negationism – however contrary to the current doctrine of the party.

The detractors of lepenism new look also recall that the RN deputy Frédéric Boccaletti was at the head of a bookstore which sold negationist works. “Facts that are 30, 35 years old,” said Jordan Bardella last week. Because the relations between the party and the “ French Israelites » have evolved, insists today the vice-president of the party Sébastien Chenu, going so far as to assure: “ our Jewish compatriots know who protects them “. Implied: the RN.

(With AFP)

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