Marine Le Pen: Some analysts see a deliberate ‘good cop, bad cop’ strategy in place – Jean-Marie shocks and Marine slaps him down, enabling her to burnish her credentials as a relative moderate.

Reuters/AFP
Paris
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right National Front (FN), said yesterday that he would not seek its ticket to stand in regional polls, taking some of the sting out of a damaging public row with his daughter Marine, the party’s current leader.
But the 86-year-old former paratrooper told Le Figaro in an interview that he was disappointed by his daughter and would not quit politics, showing that the family feud that could emerge as a threat to the FN’s bid for power is not necessarily over.
Marine Le Pen, who in 2011 took over as FN party leader from her father, has been trying to persuade him to retire both from the December regional polls and from politics altogether.
Jean-Marie Le Pen last week reiterated his view that Nazi gas chambers were a mere “detail” of war and defended Philippe Petain, the leader of the war-time government that co-operated with Nazi Germany.
That prompted his daughter to demand that his role in the party be discussed at an FN meeting on Friday.
Jean-Marie Le Pen said in a statement that he would not stand in the southeast Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region because the party was at risk of being “dangerously weakened” over what he called a severe but unjustified crisis over his comments.
FN deputy leader Florian Philippot, a close ally of Marine Le Pen who last week even suggested her father could be thrown out of the party, told iTele his move was “a wise decision”.
In a sign of his family’s strong grip on the party, Le Pen said the best replacement candidate would be his grand-daughter Marion Marechal-Le Pen.
“If she accepts, I think she would head a very good list (of candidates). She is certainly the best,” he told the magazine.
“If I have to make the sacrifice for the future of the (FN) movement, it will not be me who has caused the damage,” he said, in an apparent reference to Marine.
Marion, a 25-year-old who is France’s youngest member of parliament, confirmed shortly after that she would seek the party’s nomination.
While considered close to her grandfather, she has criticised his latest World War II comments, a first for her, and told La Provence daily yesterday: “I’ve never been at the beck and call of my grandfather.”
Marion is seen as linked with the socially conservative side of the party.
Whereas her mother Marine, for example, did not publicly criticise a 2013 law permitting same-sex marriage in France, Marion was firmly against it.
Opinion polls see Marine Le Pen as likely to make it to the second round of the 2017 presidential election but not win.
How she handles relations with her father will be one of the key factors to how her party fares in 2017.
Asked if he felt betrayed by his daughter, Le Pen, who remains the Front’s honorary president and will retain his seat in the European Parliament, told Le Figaro magazine: “Betrayed would be going a bit far, but let’s say I’m disappointed.”
Some analysts see a deliberate “good cop, bad cop” strategy in place – Jean-Marie shocks and Marine slaps him down, enabling her to burnish her credentials as a relative moderate.
While jettisoning Jean-Marie is likely to rile the party hardliners, it may also attract those disenchanted with the two main parties who had previously seen the veteran provocateur as an impassable barrier.
In a poll published on Sunday, more than two-thirds (67%) of FN voters said they were in favour of Jean-Marie’s departure while 74% said they believed his media sorties were harming the party.
“After the comments of Jean-Marie Le Pen ... the National Front finds itself yet again plunged into crisis,” said polling group Ifop.
Under Marine Le Pen, the FN has enjoyed a series of election success, notably coming first in last year’s European elections.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls has warned the far-right party is at the “gates of power” and insists its policies would be a “disaster” for the country.
The FN advocates that France, a founding member of the European Union, withdraw from the bloc and would also pull out of the euro, reintroducing the franc.
Political opponents sought to extract every last advantage out of the affair.
Gerald Darmanin, an MP from the right-wing UMP opposition party, tweeted: “The grandfather’s not standing. So the granddaughter stands instead. We don’t know about the aunt yet.”
“This isn’t politics, it’s Dallas,” he said in reference to a US soap about a back-stabbing oil dynasty.
Le Pen’s stubbornness has earned him the nickname “Menhir”, the term for the ancient standing stones found across his native region of Brittany. And despite throwing in the towel this time, the political veteran apparently has appetite for more fight.
“As long as God gives me breath, I will remain at battle stations,” he said.