MEPs have
revoked the elderly far-right leader's immunity over anti-Semitic comments made
in 2014. It is a move likely to be hailed by French prosecutors, who have
sought to charge him with inciting racial hatred.
European
lawmakers agreed on Tuesday to remove parliamentary immunity for France's
far-right patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The decision has long been sought by French state prosecutors who want
to see the founder of the National Front tried for inciting racial hatred.
The MEPs
were able to gather the requisite number of votes after showing some footage
from 2014 in which Le Pen slights Jewish singer Patrick Bruel and makes a pun
alluding to gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps.
Le Pen has
often been in the headlines over the past few years, not only for similar remarks downplaying the Holocaust, but also for his very public feud with
daughter Marine, who now leads the populist party he created.
The legal
affairs committee of the EU parliament said that immunity barring lawmakers
from prosecution was not meant to "allow for slandering, libeling,
inciting hatred or pronouncing statements attacking a person's honor."
According
to French news agency AFP, parliament president Martin Schulz was moved to hand
the complaint to the committee following complaints about Le Pen's Twitter
account. He has been known to post disturbing images of crimes carried out by
"Islamic State," such as the decapitation of American journalist
James Foley.
Marine Le
Pen, who has worked hard to try and recapture the headlines from her father's
anti-Semitic views, called the video a "political error" and openly
condemned the elder Le Pen for his statements. With an eye to the 2017 general
election in France, Marine Le Pen has been hoping to position the National
Front as a right-wing alternative to the conservative Republican party.
es/rc (AFP, dpa)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.