Over the summer Jean-Marie Le Pen was expelled from the National Front (FN) — the far-right party he cofounded, led for nearly four decades, and is the largest of its kind in Europe. The expulsion, which Le Pen is contesting, was the culmination of a months-long family feud between Jean-Marie and his successor and daughter, Marine Le Pen.

At issue were a series of comments Jean-Marie made in April of this year. First, in an interview on the flagship current affairs show Bourdin Direct, he repeated his claim, made at various junctures in his career, that the Nazi gas chambers were “a detail” of the Second World War. Furthermore, he insisted that all kinds of patriots are welcome in the FN — fervent Pétainists (collaborationists with Vichy France) just as much as fervent Gaullists.

Shortly after, he accepted an interview with Rivarol — a publication that sports a masthead of traditional and antisemitic far-right thinkers that the current FN leadership shuns. Granting an interview with such an outlet would have rankled on its own. But Jean-Marie then doubled down on his earlier claims, reiterating that Pétainists have a place in the FN (as well as defenders of French Algeria, Gaullists, former Communists, and all patriots “who have France at heart”).