Jean-Marie Le Pen Says Daughter's Campaign Undermined by Promise to Ditch Euro, Leave EU

Jean-Marie Le Pen said on Sunday evening that his daughter's bid for the presidency had been undermined by its promise to ditch the euro and hold a referendum on EU membership.

"It is the problems of the euro, of Europe, of pensions which have dragged down the campaign of Madame Le Pen, I think," said Mr Le Pen, who founded the Front National in 1972 and was expelled from the party in 2015.

"I think we must speak to France about the real problems, demographic problems, problems of mass immigration," he told RTL radio.

He said that any relaunching of the party had to be "remain true... to the basics of the Front National". 

"These are the basics of the National Front, which enabled this movement to be the only one which was set up in the 20th century and which has endured," the 88-year-old said.

He criticised Mr Philippot, saying he was "one of the main people to blame for Marine Le Pen's defeat."

[Jean-Marie Le Pen] said his daughter had fallen under the sway of advisers who had moved the anti-immigrant party to the left, promoting issues such as early retirement in order to win over socialist voters.

“These were never the main issues for the National Front,” said Le Pen.

He blamed Florian Philippot, the party’s No 2, for giving his daughter bad advice and for her “disappointing” performance in last week’s television debate. His daughter, he claimed, had launched repeated attacks on Emmanuel Macron, her centrist rival, in the hope it would provoke his “psychological meltdown”. But Macron withstood the TV onslaught - with the help of tranquillisers, according to Le Pen: “He seemed to be chemically protected: there was this calm about him.”

Le Pen said he would have done a better job in the debate, making “a heart-broken inventory” of the country’s woes and underlining “what an onerous task the next president of the republic will face”.

The way he sees it, France is in danger of dying out, overwhelmed by “masses of foreigners” abusing the country’s hospitality and generous welfare system.

“If you take a train from the Paris suburbs at 7pm in the evening you can be the only European in the carriage,” he said. “But if you say this, you are accused of racism.” He has been fined repeatedly in court for Holocaust denial. Another of his shockers was to class Germany’s occupation of France as “not exceptionally inhumane”.

He said he would continue to speak his mind, whatever the consequences. “No subject is forbidden for me.”