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And they have written op-eds denouncing Le Pen’s candidacy and some of her more controversial statements, including her denial of French responsibility for the brutal fate of the 13,000 Jews arrested during the July 1942 Vel D’hiv round-up in Paris during the Second World War.
Serge Klarsfeld: Well, for survivors of the Shoah [Holocaust], it's of course very sad to see a political situation reminding us of the thirties, when we were small children — a time when parties from the extreme right or left were very strong. Of course, an extreme right party today, even if they don't campaign against Jews, we understand that they will be opposed to Jews also. Today, Muslims are the enemies. They feel that the priority is to be given to Islam, but there was never an extreme right party which was not against Jews. Many Jews are, how to say, opposed and unhappy with the level of the extreme right in France. The level which is seen by the fact that Marine Le Pen is one of the two candidates for the second ballot.
Sarah Wildman History has been very central to this election, with Le Pen denying France’s responsibility for the 1942 Vel d'Hiv round up of 13,000 Jews in Paris, and Macron going to pay his respects at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Paris. Why do you think that this election has had such a strong tie to history?
Beate Klarsfeld Everybody has known that the National Front is an antisemitic party, and a fascist party against foreigners, and a very dangerous party because of this. It was not surprising when she made the statement. Her father [Jean Marie Le Pen] was worse. He said the Holocaust is a detail of the Second World War, you know, and denies the Holocaust. Sarah Wildman Do you think that it was a means of appealing to the people that she has, that were the original National Front?
Beate Klarsfeld Well, she has all the clients of her father, you know. She has to keep them.
From the late 1960s through the 1980s, the Klarsfelds tracked down, exposed, and helped bring to trial Nazis who had served the Gestapo in France during World War II. They weren’t quiet about their struggle: In 1968, Beate, a non-Jewish German, famously (and publicly) slapped the chancellor of West Germany while shouting “Nazi! Nazi!” She chained herself to a bench in Bolivia alongside Itta Halaunbrenner, a mother whose three children and husband the Nazis had murdered, to protest the country’s sheltering of Klaus Barbie.
Barbie, known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” was the Nazi SS officer in charge of the Gestapo in Lyon, France, from November 1942 to August 1944. Due to the efforts of the Klarsfelds, Barbie was eventually tried and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for crimes against humanity. He is believed responsible the deaths of 14,000 people.
With just days to go before the final round of the presidential election, several French resistance fighters have spoken out against the rise of the far-right and the dangers of electing Marine Le Pen president, calling it a "deadly risk" for France. While commemorating the national day of resistance and deportation on Sunday, an Auschwitz survivor and two French resistance fighters recalled the horrors of World War II and warned of the imminent threat the far-right poses to France. “It doesn’t matter if we’re accused of demonisation for we have [already] known ‘ordinary devils’ capable of orchestrating hell… For our country, the values of the Republic, our children and grandchildren, this deadly risk can’t be taken,” Auschwitz survivor Denise Toros Marter, resistance fighters Sidney Chouraqui and Louis Monguilan said in an address read out at a ceremony at France’s former camp for deportees, Le Camp des Milles, near the southern town of Aix-en-Provence.
“We know that those attracted by the extremists aren’t extremists themselves. But this was also the case for many of the French or German people momentarily seduced by [France’s Nazi-allied wartime leader Marshal Philippe] Pétain or [Adolf] Hitler without imagining the future horrors they would commit,” they said.
“Today, nationalist extremism risks conquering the power in our country and this represents the most imminent danger to our liberty and the unity of our people,” they said, alluding to far-right candidate Le Pen and the increasing popularity of her anti-immigrant National Front party.
But some of these deals have raised more than a few eyebrows, with anti-arms trade campaigners critical of France’s willingness to sell weapons to countries with less than stellar human rights records. These concerns are only set to rise when Hollande heads first to Doha on Monday and then Saudi Arabia's capital of Riyadh the day after, where furthering the recent success of the French arms industry is likely to be one of his top priorities. Saudi Arabia’s arms spending spree Saudi Arabia has already proved a lucrative trading partner for French arms manufacturers, most recently in a deal signed in November that saw the kingdom buy $3 billion-worth (€2.7 billion) of French weapons and military equipment to supply the Lebanese army. The oil-rich country is currently on something of an arms spending spree. Last year, the Saudis surpassed India to become the world’s biggest arms importer, upping its spending by 54 percent to $6.5 billion (€5.8 billion), according to a report by industry analyst IHS. France, thanks to some adept diplomatic manoeuvering in recent years, is well placed to take advantage of the Saudi cash cow. Paris has been an increasingly close ally of Riyadh ever since it was among the most vocal in backing military intervention against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Shiite Iran – one of Sunni Saudi Arabia’s main regional rivals.
On Sunday night, French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of the Front National party denied French responsibility for the brutal fate of the 76,000 Jews deported from France during the Second World War. Only 3,000 returned.
originally posted by: Leonidas
Her family are unapologetic Vichy and known Collaborators. Her weak attempt to distance herself from her dad by "throwing him out" of her political party Front National fooled few.
She is an awful human being.
originally posted by: Leonidas
Her family are unapologetic Vichy and known Collaborators. Her weak attempt to distance herself from her dad by "throwing him out" of her political party Front National fooled few.
She is an awful human being.
originally posted by: Leonidas
a reply to: yuppa
There is no way to take you seriouslyrics if you actually believe what you just wrote.