Marine Le Pen Threatens To Sue Madonna Over Nazi Image

Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s extreme right-wing National Front party, has threatened to sue U.S. pop singer Madonna for imagery in her stage show that suggests Le Pen is a Nazi.

During a recent concert in Tel Aviv, Israel, the screen behind Madonna depicted a number of prominent global figures, including Chinese president Hu Jintao and Pope Benedict. When Le Pen’s face appears in the projection, a swastika magically is imprinted upon it -- subsequently the eyes of Adolf Hitler are superimposed upon her own.

Madonna is scheduled to perform in Paris on Bastille Day (July 14) and later in the coastal city of Nice in August. If the Material Girl does not remove the reference to Le Pen in her performance, the French firebrand will seek legal action.

If she does that in France, we'll be waiting for her, Le Pen told Le Parisien newspaper.

She's an old singer. She no longer knows what to do to get people talking about her, because her songs don't work anymore.

Le Pen further vented: By the way, has Madonna given back the children she stole from Africa? Or did she end up buying them? This was a reference to Madonna’s controversial adoption of two children from Malawi that led to accusations by NGOs and others that she was kidnapping the kids.

While the flap over an image used by a pop singer may seem trivial, it is quite a serious matter to Le Pen, who is trying to rehabilitate her party’s neo-Nazi image.

Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the party, was long accused of being a Nazi sympathizer.

The National Front won 18 percent of the vote in the first round of France’s presidential election in May, giving Le Pen momentum for June’s parliamentary polls.