Ex-Adviser Says Le Pen's Inner Circle 'Are Real Nazis'

Yet Le Pen is closer than ever to giving National Front France's presidency
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 15, 2017 3:19 PM CDT
Le Pen, National Front Closer Than Ever to Ruling France
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen speaks during a campaign meeting in Perpignan, southwestern France, Saturday, April, 15, 2017.   (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

For the first time since her father founded the party in 1972, Marine Le Pen has an actual shot at delivering the French presidency to the National Front, the Guardian reports in a profile of the far-right candidate. The profile touches on Le Pen expelling her Holocaust-denying father from the party, her political awakening at a young age, and the manor house above Paris where her family lives "watched over by dobermans." The Guardian says Le Pen is the "closest she has ever been to the French presidency," thanks in part to her efforts to move the party past its racist and anti-Semetic past.

But those efforts may be just for show, the New York Times reports. Court documents and interviews with close associates of Le Pen accuse two of her closest friends and members of her inner circle of anti-Semitism and "Hitler nostalgia." Le Pen's former top foreign adviser says the men "are real Nazis" and "are at the heart of everything" for her campaign. Meanwhile, France's far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, may help the far-right candidate secure the presidency. According to Politico, 42% of Melenchon's supporters say they won't vote in the second round of the presidential election if Melenchon doesn't make it. That would be a huge boost to Le Pen. France's presidential election starts in less than two weeks. (More Marine Le Pen stories.)

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