France's Jean-Marie Le Pen steps back to ease family feud
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Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France's far-right National Front, said on Monday he would not seek its ticket to stand in regional polls later this year, taking some of the sting out of a damaging public row with his daughter Marine, the party leader.
Marine Le Pen, who wants to draw mainstream voters to the party, has been trying to persuade her father, who has been convicted for incitement to racial hatred, to retire altogether from politics.
Jean-Marie Le Pen's defence last week of his view that Nazi gas chambers were a mere "detail" of war prompted his daughter, FN leader since 2011, to demand his role in the party be discussed at a meeting of FN executives on Friday.
Asked by Le Figaro Magazine whether he would stand in the south-east Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Jean-Marie Le Pen said: "No - even though I think I am the best candidate."
