The battle for the dark soul of the French far right intensified this weekend with an extraordinary personal attack by Jean-Marie Le Pen on his daughter, his successor as leader of the Front National.
Mr Le Pen – who faces expulsion from the party that he led for almost four decades – said his daughter Marine was “neither ethically nor politically” qualified to run for the presidency in 2017.
The far-right patriarch, 87, said he would refuse to vote for his daughter in two years’ time. He left open the possibility that he might lead a dissident far-right campaign in the south of France in regional elections in December.
Always partial to conspiracy theories, Mr Le Pen suggested that Marine Le Pen’s efforts to clean up the FN over the past four years might be the result of a plot concocted by Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right former president. » | John Lichfield | | Paris | Sunday, August 9, 2015
