France's Le Pen faces backlash over WWII roundup of Jews

Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has stirred up deep emotions on Monday, just two weeks ahead of the election, by saying that today's France is not responsible for the rounding up of more than 13,000 Jews at a Paris cycle track to be sent to Nazi death camps during World War II.

France’s responsibility for the 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, the Nazi-directed mass arrest of Jews in Paris by French police, has been admitted by both former President Jacques Chirac and current leader Francois Hollande, after decades of the state denying it was at fault.

Le Pen told French broadcaster LCI on Sunday: “I don't think France is responsible for the Vel d'Hiv.”

She added: “I think that generally speaking if there are people responsible, it's those who were in power at the time. It's not France.”

The leader of the Front National said children in France had been taught “reasons to criticise [the country], and to only see, perhaps, the darkest aspects of our history". She continued: “So, I want them to be proud of being French again.”

The Vel' d'Hiv Round-up refers to the mass arrest of Jews in Paris by the French police on 16 and 17 July 1942. During the crackdown – one of several aimed at eradicating the Jewish population in France – people were temporarily confined in the velodrome before being deported to concentration camps, where the vast majority of them were murdered.

For many, notably Le Pen's chief rival for the presidency Emmanuel Macron, the remarks were an instant reminder of the candidate's anti-Semitic, negationist father, while also pricking France's fraught conscience over its wartime role.

Centre-left candidate Macron described Le Pen's comments as “a serious mistake”.

“Some had forgotten that Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen,” Macron told French news channel BFMTV, adding: “We must not be complacent or minimise what the Front National is today."

Le Pen’s father, who founded the far-right Front National party in 1972 and is estranged from his daughter, has been convicted for making racist and anti-Semitic comments such as describing the Holocaust a “detail of history”.

Le Monde daily newspaper said in an editorial that the Front National leader "crossed a red line", adding that remarks "jeopardise years of efforts to soften her party's image."

Jewish groups in France blasted the comments as an "insult to France (which has faced up to) its history without a selective memory."

Israel also slammed Le Pen, with the foreign ministry saying "the declaration is contrary to the historical truth".

After Le Pen took over leadership of the FN from her father in 2011, she has worked to erase his anti-Semitic stamp in order to broaden the party's appeal.

The party has steadily gained in strength, with Le Pen winning some 18 percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential election and the FN scoring 25 percent in the 2014 EU elections.

In this year's presidential race, Macron and Le Pen are running neck-and-neck ahead of a first-round vote on 23 April, each with around 23 percent.

In the runoff set for 7 May, Macron would win handily if the election were held today.