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French Court Overturns Right Wing Maverick Le Pen’s Suspension

© AP Photo / Laurent CiprianiFrench far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in Lyon, central France.
French far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in Lyon, central France. - Sputnik International
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A French court on Thursday annulled the suspension of Jean-Marie Le Pen from the right-wing National Front Party he founded in a move which is likely to rekindle a family feud with his daughter.

France’s far-right National Front president Marine Le Pen, center, delivers her speech at Opera Plaza during the annual May Day march, in Paris, France, Friday, May 1, 2015. - Sputnik International
The Rise and Fall of the Le Pens and the Front National in France
In April 2015, Le Pen reiterated his past comments that the Nazi gas chambers were a mere detail of history and his daughter – who took over as president of the National Front in 2011 – suspended him from the party. Some say she pounced on his comments to suspend him so that he posed no threat to her bid for political power, having moved the party more mainstream. 

He denounced her and told her to marry so that she could no longer have the family name and said it would be "scandalous" if his daughter won in the 2017 French presidential elections after the way she treated him.  

Le Pen senior challenged the suspension in the courts and Thursday won his case and re-instatement to the party. Lawyer Frederic Joachim told local media:

"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."

Marine Le Pen Backed by Party 

Jean-Marie Le Pen has courted controversy through the years. In May 1987, he advocated the forced isolation from society of all people infected with HIV.

He was accused and convicted several times at home and abroad of xenophobia and anti-Semitism and made several provocative statements interpreted by the legal system as constituting Holocaust denial. 

French far-right National Front (FN) party's president Marine Le Pen (left)and Front National's honorary president Jean-Marie Le Pen (right) - Sputnik International
Family Feud: Le Pen 'Disowned' by Father After National Front Suspension
Le Pen was further ridiculed after his marriage broke down and his ex-wife posed nude in the French edition of Playboy. 

However, according to Reuters, National Front deputy leader Florian Philippot played down any consequences from the ruling, saying party members were in any case being consulted on cancelling the honorary president title in an on-line vote that closes on July 10. 

"No one thinks that he speaks in the name of the FN anymore anyway," he told BFM TV. Asked if he still had support within the party, Philippot laughed and said there was unanimity behind Marine Le Pen.

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