PARIS
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and honorary president of the French far right National Front party, has been suspended following a disciplinary hearing.
The far-right party, which Le Pen established in 1972, said on its website on Monday an extraordinary general meeting will decide within three months whether to strip him of his status as honorary president.
The move follows Le Pen's public falling-out with his daughter Marine, who has led the party since 2011, which came after the 86-year-old remarked that the Nazi gas chambers were a "detail of history" and he defended the French wartime Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain.
Marine Le Pen has since voiced her opposition to her father's candidacy, saying on Sunday that he had “entered a veritable spiral between a scorched earth strategy and political suicide" and "no longer has the right to speak in the name of the party".
'Perfectly innocent'
Jean-Marie, who had already announced he would not run in France's regional elections in December, refused to attend the disciplinary hearing, saying it was beneath his dignity to appear when he considered he was "perfectly innocent".
He told reporters: "I am acting in my role as a parliamentarian who is paid to speak.
"I am speaking on behalf of Jean-Marie Le Pen. I don’t speak on behalf of the FN, and haven’t done for the last four years since Marine Le Pen became president."
Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred and denying the Holocaust.
The National Front came first in France in last May’s European elections with about 25 percent of the vote, the party’s greatest electoral success in its 42-year history.
