French court overturns Le Pen's FN suspension
July 2, 2015
Two months after an executive board meeting led by his daughter Marine suspended his membership to the party he founded, on Thursday 86-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen has been reinstated to his far-right National Front (FN) by a French court.
"Mr. Le Pen can from tomorrow morning ... start using his office again and all the means that were at his disposal and sit in all the bodies in which he was taking part as honorary president," his lawyer, Frederic Joachim, told local media.
The National Front said it intended to appeal the verdict.
"The unbelievable eviction of which I was victim is annulled, now I hope that we will advance towards unity as quickly as possible. To work!" Jean-Marie Le Pen tweeted after the verdict.
Le Pen the liability
A long-simmering family feud finally boiled over in May when Marine Le Pen, who took over leadership of the party in 2011, called a meeting to discuss her father's continued role in the National Front, ostensibly because of his refusal to back down from anti-Semitic comments but likely also with half an eye on her 2017 presidential bid.
The elder Le Pen refused to attend the meeting, and was thus suspended. He retaliated by launching the suit against FN in Nanterre, west of Paris, which was decided in his favor on Thursday.
His daughter said the decision would "have no influence" on a party vote set to finish on July 10 to determine whether or not to strip her father of his title as honorary president.
"No one thinks that he speaks in the name of the FN anymore anyway," FN deputy leader Florian Philippot told French TV. When asked if the elder Le Pen had supporters within the party, Philippot laughed and said the whole party stood behind Marine.
Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the conservative, anti-immigration National Front in 1972 and led the party for four decades. The inflammatory remarks that sparked the feud with his daughter include defending Philippe Petain, France's wartime leader who collaborated with the Nazi regime, and referring to the Holocaust as a mere "detail of history."
es/msh (AFP, Reuters)