Jean-Marie Le Pen gets court victory over daughter

A French court on Tuesday blocked French National Front leader Marine Le Pen's efforts to strip her father Jean-Marie Le Pen of the title of honorary president of the party, in a new setback for the far-right leader.

By sidelining her father in the party he founded four decades ago, Ms Le Pen had sought to prevent the outspoken 86-year-old from ruining her bid for power as she looks to France’s 2017 presidential election.

But a court of appeal in Versailles upheld a previous ruling that the postal vote of party members she used to determine the fate of her father was against the party’s rules, insisting she would have to hold an actual congress instead.

The National Front said in a statement it was surprised by the court’s decision and would still go ahead with the counting of the vote and make its result public because of its “undeniable political significance”.

Ms Le Pen had already expressed incredulity at the idea she should organise a convention for the party’s 50,000-plus members on this issue.

"What am I supposed to do, hire the Stade de France maybe?" she was recently quoted as saying in local media, referring to France's 80,000-seat national stadium on the outskirts of Paris.

The drama at the National Front erupted in April when Mr Le Pen reiterated past comments that the Nazi gas chambers were a mere detail of history and defended Philippe Petain, the wartime French leader who co-operated with Nazi Germany.

Weeks of squabbling via the media ensued, with daughter accusing father of political suicide and the father publicly suspecting she would like him dead anyway. – (Reuters)