Ally of France’s Le Pen insists ‘said nothing wrong’ after using Nazi slogan

Filed 43m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a National Rally lawmaker and prominent media figure in Marine Le Pen's party, used the phrase 'work sets you free' — the English rendering of the Nazi camp slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' — during a rally speech in Vierzon last weekend. After a clip circulated widely, Tanguy insisted he had said nothing wrong and framed the remark as being about wages enabling personal freedom.

He apologized only to those with painful family histories or personal connections to antisemitism, not for the phrase itself, and declined to apologize for what he called accusations against him. National Rally Vice President Louis Aliot backed him, saying the clip was taken out of context and he had no criticism of Tanguy.

The episode surfaces as Marine Le Pen, attempting a fourth presidential run, leads early polling while continuing efforts to distance the party from antisemitic remarks made by her father and party co-founder.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Of all the ways to say a paycheck buys you freedom, he reached for the one carved over a camp gate. You can call that bad luck once. When your party's whole project is convincing people it has moved past the founder's mouth, the least you can do is learn which words belong to the dead, and the apology that only covers people with painful family histories tells you he knows exactly which ones those are.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Investigations · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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