MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's National Front party, was suspended Monday in a disciplinary hearing, amid controversial remarks about the WWII, the party said in a statement.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, 86, has had tensions with the party's leadership after making comments in April suggesting that Nazi gas chambers, used to kill Jews during the Holocaust, were "merely a detail in the history."
According to the National Front's Monday statement, the party will hold a meeting within three months to decide whether he should be stripped of the title of honorary president.
Le Pen reportedly refused to attend the hearing, stating that it was below his dignity to appear before a disciplinary panel when he was innocent, and stating that he does not speak on behalf of the party.
On Sunday, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter and the current party leader, stated that she thought that her father should not be able to speak on behalf of the party.
France will hold presidential elections in 2017. Marine Le Pen is expected to make a strong bid in the upcoming vote, as her party was elected second in France's departmental elections in March.
