Le Pen already tried to convince me that she was not racist, by Jamil Chade

In a black suit and sitting next to me on the sofa, he approached and whispered: “I even have a Polish maid, how am I supposed to be racist?”

At that time, the big debate in Western Europe was what to do with Eastern Europe and the supposed invasion that would occur if the bloc was expanded.

Father of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French extreme right led Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour’s campaign in 1965. It was an attempt to rehabilitate French collaborationists. But it was his party created in 1972, the Front National, that would serve as a platform for his nonsense and neo-fascist ideas.

Over the years, however, his rhetoric gained more and more force. In 1974, he received just 0.7% of the vote in the presidential election. But the crisis of the 80s threw his group into the European Parliament and the French Assembly.

He also participated in the presidential elections of 1988 and 1995 and, in 2002, received 16% of the votes. A million French people took to the streets to reject that far-right advance.

Nazi crimes relativized

Le Pen would also become known for her attempt to relativize Nazi crimes. According to him, the gas chambers in the concentration camps were just “details” of history. He spoke in support of collaborationist Philippe Pétain.