Earlier this week, in an absurdly transparent attempt to distance herself from her party’s anti-Semitic past, Marine Le Pen stepped down as FN leader.
Here’s how we explained the move in a post called “Marine Le Pen Isn’t A Nazi — And She’ll Prove It By Stepping Down As FN Leader”
Oh look!
A publicity stunt to distance herself from being a raving anti-Semite.
Marine Le Pen has “temporarily” stepped down as leader of the party most associated with her notoriously racist father.
One hopes French voters aren’t naive enough to call this anything but what it is: a transparent smoke screen (smoke screens that are transparent usually aren’t very effective).
Some readers weren’t amused with our rather blunt assessment. C’est la vie.
Well, in a testament to our contention that no matter what Le Pen does and no matter how hard she tries, she will never be able to escape her past, Le Monde reports that Jean-François Jalkh, who was nominated interim president of the far-right party in Le Pen’s absence, had some “interesting” things to say about Nazi gas chambers back in 2000.
To wit (translated):
In an interview in April 2000 with the academic Magali Boumaza, found on Tuesday, April 25 by the journalist of La Croix Laurent de Boissieu , Jean-Fran̤ois Jalkh expresses doubts about the reality of the gas chambers Рreviving a negationist rhetoric including Marine Le Pen Has been trying to rid his party since he took office in 2011.
“I say that we must be able to discuss even this problem [of the gas chambers],” begins Mr. Jalkh, before making the distinction between the revisionists “stamped” and “provocateurs” who are “detestable people” and the deniers “serious” as Robert Faurisson ( repeatedly condemned for “contesting crimes against humanity” ), which he praises the “rigor” of the argument.
“There is no deliberate will to harm anyone,” he continues, defending himself as a negationist, before explaining that he asked a chemist on the Zyklon B, a gas used by the Nazis in their industry of extermination: “I consider that from a technical point of view it is impossible, I say impossible to use it in (…) exterminations of mass. Why ? Because it takes several days before decontaminating a room (…) where Zyklon B was used. “
Oops.
Obviously that’s no good from a PR perspective. Fortunately, Jalkh has an explanation. Here’s what FN’s new leader had to say when contacted by Le Monde:
This is the first time I hear this kind of bullshit, I have no memory of it. Maybe I gave an interview but these are not my favorite subjects.
See there? It’s “bullshit.”
Or maybe not. “Maybe” Jalkh gave an interview, but even if he did, Zyklon B isn’t “his favorite subject.”
Someone call Sean Spicer to explain this.
.@PressSec Sean Spicer claims even Adolf Hitler didn't use chemical weapons against his people https://t.co/S7gDqb2HdV pic.twitter.com/xnSPD8raiN
— POLITICO (@politico) April 11, 2017
