Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right symbol and founder of the National Front (FN), will not run in upcoming regional elections amid a high-profile feud with his daughter over the future of the party.
Le Pen told Le Figaro Magazine that he would bow out of the running in the southeast of France for the party even though he thinks he "was the best candidate for the National Front," France 24 reports.
In the latest public move in a long-running dispute that's dominated headlines in France, Le Pen said he wants his granddaughter, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, to assume his candidacy instead. A top party official, Florian Philippot, said on i-Tele television Monday that Le Pen had discussed the decision with party leadership.
Le Pen's daughter Marine has led the anti-immigrant party to electoral successes in recent years and sought to clean up its racist image. Last week she said she opposed her 86-year-old father's candidacy in the regional elections, and wanted him disciplined for anti-Semitic and other offensive remarks.
He incurred the wrath of his daughter after repeating an assertion that the Nazi gas chambers were a "detail of history" during an interview with a far right magazine, according to France 24, and followed that up with a defense of France's World War II leader Philippe Petain, who collaborated with the Nazis.
Marine Le Pen accused her father of committing "political suicide" in a statement following the comments. “Jean-Marie Le Pen seems to have descended into a strategy somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide,” she said last week.
“His role as honorary president [of the party] doesn’t authorize him to take the National Front hostage, with crude provocation that seemingly aims to harm me but unfortunately deals a heavy blow to the whole movement.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting.