Jean-Marie Le Pen's Anti-Semitic Remarks Cause Family Row in National Front

A family row has exploded in France's rising star of politics, with the Front National's president Marine Le Pen forced to call the latest anti-Semitic slur of her father a "political error".

In a video posted on the party's website, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the FN which has topped the latest European elections with 25% of the vote, lambasted French Jewish singer Patrick Bruel, a vocal critic of the far-right party, saying: "We'll do an oven load next time".

The video was taken offline but was broadcasted by French national TV.

Jewish and anti-fascists group condemned Le Pen's comments as anti-Semitic.

The French word for oven, "fournée", allegedly refer to crematoria used by the Nazis in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), urged the EU to strip Le Pen, an MEP, of his parliamentary immunity.

"Le Pen has unmasked the true face of the far-right of Europe days after their electoral successes in the European Parliament," Kantor said in a statement. "While some have tried to whitewash and mainstream these parties, Le Pen's comments demonstrate that they still stand on foundations of hatred, anti-Semitism and xenophobia."

Although Le Pen said the word "fournée" had no anti-Semitic implication, his daughter sought to distance herself from the remarks of her father.

"I am convinced that the meaning that was given to his remarks stem from a wrong interpretation," Marine Le Pen said. "But given Jean-Marie Le Pen's very deep experience, to not have anticipated how this formulation may be interpreted is a political error, which has consequences for the National Front."

Other FN representatives dissociated from Jean Marie Le Pen's comments.

Marine has ferried the party from a radical right-wing niche to a populist anti-immigration and anti-establishment platform. She claims that the party is removed from its racist and anti-Semitic roots, with which it was synonymous under her father's leadership.

But the 85-year-old father, who is still honourary president of FN, replied to Marine and the other FN leaders saying that "they want to resemble to the other political parties".

"I am a free man, I'm not forced to march in the paths traced by the single thought".