The Le Pen family: family feud ends in political patricide

Last September, tensions between Jean-Marie Le Pen, the 86-year-old founder of the France’s Front National, and his daughter, Marine, the party president, were running at an all-time high when one of Le Pen’s doberman dogs savagely attacked and killed Marine’s beloved Bengal cat. Marine, who for years had been living with her father in the stable wing of a 17th-century chateau in the western suburbs of Paris, moved out a month later.

For a long time leading up to that point, disagreement had been brewing over the party’s future. Le Pen junior, who succeeded her father as the FN president four years ago with 67.7% of the vote, wanted to modernise its image and outlook, ditching its thuggish past in favour of mainstream credibility and increased electoral popularity. Le Pen senior was aghast at the course his youngest child was steering, condemning her publicly for being too “left wing” and progressive.

While Marine, 46, actively courts the gay vote, her father once described homosexuality as a “biological and social anomaly”. While Marine has attempted to purge the party of its thuggish diehards – banning skinheads in Nazi uniform from attending rallies and promoting smooth-suited technocrats to key management positions – her father has been fined thousands of euros for inciting racial hatred.

snip

Last week, that split came with an incendiary radio interview in which Jean-Marie reiterated his claim that the Nazi gas chambers were a historical “detail”, praised France’s collaborationist wartime leader, Marshal Petain, and questioned the country’s Spanish-born prime minister, Manuel Valls.

link
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/12/front-national-marine-le-pen--jean-marie-le-pen-france-politics

Friendly Fascism vs Fascist Thuggery
The father is a nut case, a racist AND anti-France. (if you praise Petain, you're anti-France - imo)

edit: I think it's interesting that her deputy Florian Philippot is gay. Didn't know there were Log Cabin National Fronts