National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was expelled for describing the Holocaust as a ‘detail of history’. Marine Le Pen has expressed regret for expelling her late father from the far-right party he founded. Le Pen admitted she would “never forgive herself” for removing her fatherJean-Marie Le Pen from National Front (FN), National Rally (RN) in 2015.
![[Mr Le Pen died aged 96 on Tuesday last week and was buried at a private funeral in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/13/FRANCIA-JEAN-MARIE_LE_PEN-DECESO_61035.jpg)
She expelled him from the party four years after she succeeded him in 2011 after he repeated a previous remark that the Holocaust was a “detail of history” – words that had brought a conviction for Holocaust denial. “I will never forgive myself for this decision because I know it caused him immense pain,” she told the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche less than a week after his death.
![[Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the National Front, renamed National Rally, in 1972]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/12/France_Obit_Le_Pen_92310.jpg)
Mr Le Pen died aged 96 on Tuesday last week and was buried at a private funeral in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer in southern Brittany. His supporters saw him as a charismatic figure who would speak up for the everyman, but he was widely condemned as a bigot who was convicted several times by the courts for his remarks. In 1990, he was convicted for the Holocaust denial remark three years after he made it during a radio interview.
In 2015, he repeated the quote, saying he “did not at all” regret it, leading to a new conviction in 2016, just after he was expelled from the party he founded by his daughter. Le Pen described her father’s expulsion as “one of the most difficult decisions of my life”, adding: “Until the day I die, I will always ask myself if I could have acted differently.”.
