The acting leader of the National Front, Jean-François Jalkh, stepped down on Friday after he was mired in controversy for comments he allegedly made over a decade ago about the gas used at Nazi extermination camps.

Jalkh replaced Marine Le Pen this week as National Front leader after she temporarily stepped aside in an attempt to distance herself from her party.

But Jalkh's time at the top didn't last long.

He stepped down on Friday morning after facing criticism for comments he allegedly made over a decade ago about the gas used at Nazi extermination camps.

"I consider that from a technical standpoint it is impossible - and I stress, impossible - to use it [Zyklon B] in mass exterminations. Why? Because you need several days to decontaminate a space … where Zyklon B has been used," he said in an interview that was unearthed on Wednesday by a reporter with La Croix newspaper.

The chemical agency Zyklon B was used by Nazis in concentration camps in Poland and beyond.

Jalkh has denied any memory of making the comments,

But it appears he did indeed make the comments, in an interview with Magali Boumaza, a political scientist behind a thesis on the National Front.

Le Pen and Jalkh at the Elysee presidential Palace.

The scandal that followed was enough to force Jalkh to step down from the top spot of the National Front.

The party's spokesman said that Jalkh will press charges, although it remains unclear as yet whether this will be against the newspaper, the journalist, or even the political scientist who first published the comments.

Jalkh will be replaced by Steeve Briois, the mayor of Hénin-Beaumont in northern France, where Le Pen held her election night party after the first round on Sunday.

Members of the National Front have been accused of anti-Semitism and even Holocaust denial many times before. </s> The man appointed to replace Marine Le Pen as head of her French far-right National Front party has stepped down to prepare legal action over allegations he expressed doubt about Nazi gas chambers.

Jean-Francois Jalkh was named as interim party chief when Ms Le Pen vacated the position earlier this week to focus on the presidential race.

She is set to face off against centrist ex-banker Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election on May 7.

But the party faced fresh turmoil when comments that Mr Jalkh made about the Holocaust in 2000 resurfaced alongside the news of his new appointment.

Mr Jalkh made the comments while in conversation with a researcher about the work of Robert Faurisson, a professor convicted more than once for questioning the scale of Jewish extermination in Nazi gas chambers during World War II.

Also unearthed was a newspaper report from 1991 that said Mr Jalkh had attended a rally held by supporters of Marshal Philippe Petain, a French wartime leader and Nazi collaborator.

"He [Mr Jalkh] wants to defend himself and he will be filing a legal complaint because he feels his honour has been attacked, and I can tell you he firmly and formally contests what he is accused of," Front member Louis Aliot told BFM TV.

Mr Aliot said Steeve Briois, another of the party's four vice-presidents, would take Mr Jalkh's place.

In the run-up to her bid for power, Ms Le Pen has sought to cleanse the Front's image of xenophobic and anti-Semitic associations, recasting it as a "French first" party that opposes immigration, globalisation and European Union membership.

Ms Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has in the past referred to the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail" of history.

The founder of National Front, who has been convicted of inciting racial hatred for his remarks on the Holocaust, said as recently as 2015 that he had a right to make such comments because he believed them to be true.

As Ms Le Pen and her party grappled with a potentially damaging turn of events, Mr Macron headed for a campaign visit to a village that has been preserved as it was when Nazi soldiers killed nearly all of its inhabitants in 1944. </s> PARIS, April 28 (Reuters) - The man designated to replace French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen as head of the far-right National Front party has refused the job and will focus on defending himself against allegations he made questionable comments about the Holocaust, National Front member Louis Aliot said on Friday.

Aliot, Marine Le Pen's partner in private life, announced the decision in a television interview with BFM TV, saying Jean-Francois Jalkh, a hitherto little-known vice-president of the party, did not want to take up the post in the current climate.

Days from the May 7 presidential ballot where Marine Le Pen faces off against Emmanuel Macron, Alio said Jalkh would file a legal complaint over what he called totally unfounded accusations of ambiguous stances on the mass killing of Jews during World War Two. </s> (JTA) – The leadership of the far-right National Front party in France replaced its pick for interim president following reports he had denied aspects of the Holocaust.

Jean-François Jalkh, who took Marine Le Pen’s place at the helm this week temporarily in connection with her campaign ahead of the May 7 runoff in the presidential elections, was replaced on Friday, two days after his appointment, by Steeve Briois, the mayor of Henin Beaumont and a member of the European Parliament, the Le Point magazine reported.

On Thursday, the Le Monde daily reported that Jalkh is disputing the veracity of quotes attributed to him in an interview from 2000 in which he was quoted as questioning the use of the Zyklon B poison by Nazis during the Holocaust to kill Jews.

“Personally, I think that it is impossible from a technical point of view to use for mass extermination,” he said of the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers. “Why? Because it takes several days for a place where Zyklon B was used to be decontaminated.”

Louis Aliot, the life-partner of Marine Le Pen and a senior National Front member, did not offer an explanation for the decision to replace Jalkh, whom Aliot said “did not make the statements” attributed to him.

Claims based on bogus science and chemistry especially is a tactic of Holocaust deniers, notably David Irving of the United Kingdom.

According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, “Zyklon B was delivered to the camps in crystal pellet form. As soon as the pellets were exposed to air they turned into poisonous gas. A Nazi equipped with a gas mask would empty the crystals into the packed gas chamber through a small opening. Within minutes, the victims were dead.”

National Front’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has several convictions for denying aspects of the Holocaust, as well as for inciting racial hatred against Jews.

His daughter, who succeeded him in 2011 as party leader, has attempted to rehabilitate the party’s image, condemning the Holocaust and distancing herself from her father’s anti-Semitic rhetoric. But last month she said that “France is not responsible” for its authorities’ actions during the Nazi occupation, when French police officers helped Nazis round up Jews and send them to be murdered.

Under Marine Le Pen, the National Front has seen a purge in which dozens of members were kicked out of the party for making anti-Semitic statements or expressing revisionist views about the Holocaust. She kicked her father out of the party in 2015 for making anti-Semitic statements about a Jewish singer, whom Jean-Marie Le Pen said should “go into the oven.”

National Front won just over 21 per cent of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections on April 23, trailing the centrist, independent candidate Emmanuel Macron by two points. It was the best result in the history of National Front, which made it to the second round for the first time in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen won 18 per cent of the vote in the first round.

In a poll from earlier this week conducted by Paris Match, CNews and Sud Radio, 60.5 per cent of respondents said they would vote for Macron on May 7, compared to 39.5 per cent who said they would vote for Le Pen. </s> PARIS (REUTERS) - Marine Le Pen's bid to defy the odds and win election as French president risked a setback on Friday (April 28) when the man named interim head of her National Front (FN) party stood down to defend himself against charges that he shares the views of Holocaust deniers.

Days from the May 7 ballot when the far-right leader faces off against centrist ex-banker Emmanuel Macron, the abrupt exit of Jean-Francois Jalkh awoke ghosts from the Front's past and revived a furore sparked by Le Pen's father when he called the Nazi gas chambers a "detail" of history.

The renewed controversy threatens moves by Le Pen, who expelled her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, from the party two years ago, to cleanse the FN's image of xenophobic and anti-semitic associations and make it more palatable to a broader electorate.

"With all we know of the revisionist views the Le Pen family has voiced in the past, there comes a time when the women and men of France must open their eyes to where the National Front comes from," Richard Ferrand, Macron's campaign director, said.

Though opinion polls still show her losing in the May 7 face-off with Macron, she has in the past few days been scoring public relations points off him with well-timed appearances and comments.

Jalkh, a long-time ally of Le Pen senior who founded the National Front and one of 35 Front members elected to parliament in the mid-1980s, had been due to take over as interim party chief, a post Marine Le Pen vacated to focus on the presidential race.

Front member Louis Aliot, Marine Le Pen's partner in private life who announced the move, told BFM TV: "He (Jalkh) wants to defend himself and he will be filing a legal complaint because he feels his honour has been attacked, and I can tell you he firmly and formally contests what he is accused of." Steeve Briois, another of the party's four vice presidents, would take Jalkh's place, Aliot said.

At issue are comments attributed to Jalkh in a conversation with a researcher in 2005 about the work of Robert Faurisson, a professor convicted more than once for questioning the scale of Jewish extermination in Nazi gas chambers during World War Two.

Le Pen's father, who was tried and convicted of inciting racial hatred for his remarks on the Holocaust, said as recently as 2015 that he had a right to make such comments because he believed them to be true.

In the run-up to her bid for power, Marine Le Pen has sought to cleanse the FN's image of such associations and recast it as a nativist, or "French first", party that opposes immigration, globalisation and European Union membership.

Her father appears rapidly to be turning into a thorn into her side as she strives to mount a convincing campaign against Macron.

Last Tuesday, after a first round of voting from which she emerged as one of the two runoff candidates, the 88-year-old former paratrooper said she should have campaigned more aggressively following the example of US President Donald Trump.

He courted controversy again on Friday when he said a remembrance ceremony for the policeman killed last week by an attacker in Paris "exalted" the concept of gay marriage because the gay policeman's male partner was given the stage to speak in his memory.

Marine Le Pen, who attended the state ceremony with other political figures including Macron, distanced herself from his comment. "I felt it was a very dignified ceremony and I was very moved by the speech of his partner," she said.

Jalkh was a little-known figure from the old guard of the party, until his name emerged as interim party leader this week. Newspaper articles relayed the Holocaust-related comments he is purported to have made.

Also unearthed was a newspaper report from 1991 that said Jalkh had attended an anniversary rally held by supporters of Marshal Philippe Petain, French wartime leader and Nazi collaborator, in July of that year.

As Le Pen and her party grappled with a potentially damaging turn of events, Macron, headed for a campaign visit to a village that has been preserved as it was when SS soldiers killed nearly all of its inhabitants in 1944.

Macron was expected mid-afternoon in Oradour-sur-Glane, the village in central France, now a "frozen-in-time" memorial to the 642 men, women and children killed in the space of a few hours in June 1944.

Le Pen said on her return to Paris from an overnight rally in the southern city of Nice that Jalkh was deeply affected by the accusations against him. She said the matter of party leader had been solved with Briois being named to the position.

A new Opinionway poll published at midday showed Macron, like in most other polls, beating Le Pen in the final ballot with 60 per cent of the total vote against her 40. An Odoxa poll put the margin between them at 59 to 41. </s> France's troubled wartime past is taking centre stage in the presidential race as centrist Emmanuel Macron visits a Nazi massacre site and Marine Le Pen's far-right party suffers a new blow over alleged Holocaust denial.

The two candidates facing a May 7 run-off offer starkly different visions of France's future - Mr Macron's embrace of a globalised, diverse nation within an open-bordered Europe contrasts with Ms Le Pen's protectionist, tightly policed France independent of the EU.

After courting blue-collar voters earlier this week around the campaign's top issue - jobs - the candidates are increasingly focusing on their opposing views of French identity.

Railing against "mass immigration" at a rally on Thursday in Nice, Ms Le Pen told supporters: "This presidential election is a referendum for or against France.

"I call on you to choose France. Not Mr Macron, that's for sure, whose platform is about the dilution of France. On his horizon is the deconstruction of France."

Mr Macron shot back with a vigorous TV defence of the united Europe and institutions built over the past half a century to ensure peace among long-warring neighbours through free trade.

He reminded viewers of the racism and anti-Semitism that still stain Ms Le Pen's party despite her efforts to detoxify it and broaden her base, noting "offensive statements on our history, on our political life" by interim National Front leader Jean-Francois Jalkh.

Mr Jalkh, who took over as party leader this week after Ms Le Pen said she would step aside to concentrate on her campaign, has come under fire over comments reported in a 2000 interview in which he allegedly cast doubt on the truth of Nazi gas chambers.

National Front vice president Louis Aliot said on BFM television that Mr Jalkh is stepping down to avoid further damage to the party, but he is contesting allegations of Holocaust denial, a crime in France.

Mr Jalkh is among seven people called to trial in an alleged illegal financing scheme for the party - one of the other challenges facing Ms Le Pen's campaign.

Mr Aliot said Mr Jalkh will be replaced as party leader by Steeve Briois, mayor of Ms Le Pen's electoral fiefdom of Henin-Beaumont in depressed northern France.

Mr Macron is taking the moral high ground with a visit to Oradour-sur-Glane, a ghost town left behind after the largest massacre in Nazi-occupied France seven decades ago.

The town is today a phantom village, with burned-out cars and abandoned buildings left as testimony to its history.

On June 10, 1944, four days after the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy, an SS armoured division herded hundreds of civilians into barns and a church, blocked the doors, and set the town on fire. A total of 642 men, women and children died. </s> French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is temporarily stepping down as head of her National Front party.

Monday's move appears to be a way for Le Pen to embrace a wide range of potential voters ahead of the May 7 runoff between herself and Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who came in first in Sunday's first round.

"Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate," she said on French public television news.

Le Pen has said in the past that she is not a candidate of her party, and made that point when she rolled out her platform in February, saying the measures she was espousing were not her party's, but her own.

Le Pen has worked to bring in voters from the left and right for several years, cleaning up her party's racist, anti-Semitic image to do so. </s> French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced she is temporarily stepping down as head of her National Front party.

Monday's move appears to be an attempt to appeal to a wider range of potential voters ahead of the May 7 run-off between herself and Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who came in first in Sunday's first round.

It would also appear that Le Pen realises association with the toxic National Front party, which has a history of intolerance and racism, will scupper her chances of being elected.

The brazen move to disassociate herself from the party she has led since 2011 can be seen as an attempt to hoodwink voters in the battle for France's heart and soul.

"Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate," she said on French public television news.

Le Pen has said in the past that she is not a candidate of her party, and made that point when she rolled out her platform in February, saying the measures she was espousing were not her party's, but her own.

She has worked to bring in voters from the left and right for several years, attempting to clean up her party's racist, anti-Semitic image to do so, but the party remains a totem of right wing extremism in France and beyond.

She took over leadership of the party from her controversial father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was leader for almost 40 years since its foundation in 1972.

He has been found guilty of racism or inciting racial hatred on a number of occasions, as well as being found guilty by a Munich court of "minimizing the Holocaust, which caused the deaths of six million Jews". </s> Chesnot/Getty Images(PARIS) — French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen announced Monday that she is temporarily stepping down from her party’s leadership as she battles for the presidency. She will face off against Emmanuel Macron during the second round of the election on May 7.

“I’m taking a leave of absence as president of @FN_officiel [the Front National]; I’m now simply a candidate in the presidential election,” Le Pen tweeted from her official account.

Le Pen and Macron bested nine other candidates to advance past the first round of voting on Sunday. They will now spend two weeks fighting for votes ahead of the second and final round.

Her decision to step down from the leadership of the National Front party appears to be an attempt to broaden her appeal as she and Macron battle to gain the support of voters who backed losing candidates in the first round of voting.

Since the results of the first round of voting became clear, Macron has enjoyed a number of high-profile endorsements, including from French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The National Front’s image has been tarnished by the reputation of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the party until his daughter took it over in 2011.

The elder Le Pen was widely rebuked for calling Nazi gas chambers “a detail of history.”

Marine Le Pen has denounced these remarks and worked to broaden her party’s appeal.

The two opposing French candidates received tacit support from two opposing U.S. politicians in the lead up to the first round vote.

President Donald Trump, while not offering a formal endorsement, said in an interview that Le Pen was “the strongest on what’s been going on in France.”

Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, phoned Macron to wish him well ahead of the vote. Obama’s spokesman said it was not an official endorsement. </s> Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader and candidate for the French 2017 presidential election, attends a campaign rally in Marseille, France, April 19, 2017. — Reuters pic

MARSEILLE, April 20 — French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen yesterday accused her rivals of turning a blind eye to Islamic terrorism at her last major rally before the first round of a nailbiting race for president.

Addressing nearly 5,000 flag-waving supporters in the southern city of Marseille, where two Frenchmen were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of planning an attack on the election, the National Front (FN) leader said: “I have been denouncing this terrible poison of Islamic terrorism since I launched my campaign ... and none of my rivals are willing to debate the subject.

“They wanted to stay quiet about this problem, to suppress it, to keep it at a distance like one sweeps dust under the carpet,” she said.

“The silence of the other candidates comes from shame, the shame of being a member or even having led a government which did nothing to lower the threat and even created the conditions for this scourge to develop,” she told the rally, which was held under tight security.

Police fired teargas and arrested four people after around 500 people demonstrated against Le Pen and tried to march towards the rally.

Some of them threw projectiles and firecrackers.

“Terrorist acts have multiplied throughout Europe during the campaign,” she said. “Here in Marseille two fanatics were arrested before they committed odious crimes.”

Le Pen, 48, has spent years trying to grow support for the FN by campaigning on bread-and-butter issues, but in the final days of the race she has returned to its stock themes of immigration and national identity.

In a BFM television interview yesterday she repeated that she would slash immigration, make it harder to get French nationality and crack down on suspected Islamists.

Polls show Le Pen, 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative former prime minister Francois Fillon and hard left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon locked in a tight four-way race ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting.

A new survey published yesterday showed Macron leading on 23 per cent to Le Pen’s 22.5 per cent — both of them down slightly.

Fillon had improved to 19.5 per cent while Melenchon had reached 19 per cent, narrowing the gap with the frontrunners.

The top two will advance to a run-off vote on May 7.

Jean-Yves Camus, an academic and expert on the FN, told AFP that Le Pen had returned to the “fundamentals, and particularly immigration” in the final run-in.

“It’s back to basics,” he said.

“The FN top brass has decided to go full throttle for far-right voters.”

Struggling Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, whom polls place fifth, attempted to turn around his campaign at a rally in Paris.

Hamon urged voters to “wake up, because you alone can avoid a nightmare for France.”

After a string of Islamist-inspired assaults in France, security to the centre of the campaign following the arrests of two men seen in a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group.

A cache of weapons and explosives was found in the apartment of the suspects named as Clement Baur, 23, and Mahiedine Merabet, 29.

Macron yesterday told a rally that he was the only candidate capable “of ensuring the security” of his countrymen and pledged to “track down all those who have attacked our country or are planning to do so and prevent them from doing harm.”

Le Pen has claimed that her proposals such as expelling any foreigner convicted of a crime or suspected of being radicalised would have helped prevent some of the attacks since 2015 which have claimed more than 200 lives.

Left-leaning Le Monde newspaper has dismissed the claim as “absurd” given that most of the attackers were French, many without criminal records.

“You don’t seek votes on the backs of dead people. It’s a sort of moral red line,” the newspaper said.

French voters have so far been more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, polls show, though analysts warn this would change quickly in the event of bloodshed.

Some analysts have also depicted the French election as a sort of referendum on the European Union, with Le Pen proposing to a referendum on France’s membership of the 28-country club and scrap the euro common currency.

On Tuesday night, she insisted that the TF1 television channel remove the blue-and-yellow European flag from behind her before an interview.

But Melenchon, her eurosceptic hard left opponent, sought to soften his position on Tuesday night, stating that he did not seek to end the European Union or the euro despite criticising the “ultra-liberal” trading bloc for years.

“Don’t believe what they tell you, ‘He wants to leave Europe, the euro’... let’s be serious,” he told supporters.

The Communist-backed candidate has pledged to renegotiate some of the founding treaties of the bloc, however, which would cast serious doubt on the viability of the postwar project of integrating the continent.

Polls show that a majority of French people still support the EU and the euro.

The election has been one of the most unpredictable in decades and takes place against the backdrop of Britain’s shock decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States. — AFP
Jean-François Jalkh, who replaced current presidential finalist Marine Le Pen as leader of the National Front, steps down from this role after three days following the reemergence of his comments questioning the logistics of Holocaust extermination camps, and is replaced by Steeve Briois.