Maréchal is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Rally’s predecessor alongside Nazi collaborators and was several times sentenced for hate speech and downplaying the significance of the Holocaust. Le Pen infamously called Nazi gas chambers used to commit genocide against millions of Jews a mere “point of detail” in World War II history on several occasions. He died earlier this year and Maréchal pledged to “pursue his mission.”
Maréchal’s mother was Le Pen’s second daughter. Early on in her political career, she referred to herself as Marion Maréchal Le Pen. She has since dropped Le Pen from her name.
Under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie’s youngest daughter, the National Rally has sought to clean up its image and erase its antisemitic past. Marine even expelled her father from the party he founded in 2015 after he again reiterated his “point of detail” claim.
The National Rally has also in recent years vociferously supported Israel, particularly since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza. The party also makes the case that its platform against immigration would “shield” French Jews from “Islamist fundamentalism.”
Far-right guests
Other conference attendees include Maréchal and Bardella’s Spanish colleague in the European Parliament Hermann Tertsch, a member of the Vox party, and Sebastiaan Stöteler, an MEP from Geert Wilders’ Dutch Freedom Party.
The attendance of so many far-right European figures from parties with a troubling history of antisemitism or anti-Muslim statements has prompted backlash among prominent American and European Jews. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy and the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt both pulled out of the conference over the guest list.
