Experts argue the French rightwing leader's newfound distance from the U.S. president represents the growing legitimacy of her National Rally party.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she will never forgive herself for expelling her father Jean-Marie Le Pen from her party, after he died last week aged 96. She slung her father out of the party for his anti-Semitic views in 2015.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she will never forgive herself for expelling her father Jean-Marie Le Pen from the party he founded and she rebranded, after he died last week aged 96.

Over 1,000 people attended a memorial ceremony in central Paris for the founder of France’s main far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died last week at the age of 96.

Marine Le Pen has expressed regret for expelling her late father from the far-right party he founded. Le Pen admitted she would “never forgive herself” for removing her father Jean-Marie Le Pen from National Front (FN), National Rally (RN) in 2015.

The leader of France's far-right Rassemblement National, a party founded by her late father in 1972 and previously named the Front National, expelled him in 2015 over his anti-Semitic remarks.

Once called the 'most hated man in France', Le Pen maintained that his ideas were simply 'ahead of their time'

But Marine Le Pen, who was on a plane taking her back from the cyclone-ravaged French island of Mayotte to mainland France, only learned of the news afterwards, during a stopover in Nairobi.

But not all of the leading conservative populist parties in the world are the same — in rhetoric or on policy.

France’s political dynamic, and the prospects for the Left within it, should be read within the broader trajectory of the country’s neoliberal paradigm. Now dominant for over four decades, this paradigm is built on pillars that structure the worldview of not only a large swath of France’s ruling elites (in the political,

Jean-Marie Le Pen brought fascist views into the French mainstream, writes Nabila Ramdani. She reflects on his far-right legacy following his death.

The memorial for Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was known for his racist and antisemitic remarks, comes as the National Rally has become the driving force in French politics.