Racism In Europe: Jewish Oven Joke Get Marine le Pen's Father Charged Over Jewish Oven Joke

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front Party, was charged Saturday with inciting religious hatred over anti-Semitic comments he made in 2014. The indictment, confirmed by Le pen's lawyer, could do significant political damage to his daughter Marine Le Pen’s current presidential campaign that was already being painted as anti-Semitic after she said Thursday that French Jews will be forced to give up their Israeli citizenship if she wins the election.

The charges on Jean-Marie Le Pen stem from a video he posted in 2014 that shows him denouncing celebrities who had criticized his political agendas including the pop star Madonna and the French singers Yannick Noah and Patrick Bruel, The Independent reported Monday.

When asked about Bruel, who is Jewish, Jean-Marie Le Pen responded that he would be part of “a batch we will get next time,” while using the French word “fournee."

His use of the word “fournee” has since been interpreted by the authorities as a pun on the word “four,” which means “oven” and alludes to Nazi gas chambers in the holocaust.

Jean-Marie Le Pen defended his comments after the controversy blew up, saying, "The word 'fournee' that I used has no anti-Semitic connotation, except for political enemies or imbeciles."

Marine Le Pen condemned her father’s comments but said they had been misconstrued in a “malicious interpretation” to harm the National Front party. A recent poll found that Marine Le Pen will likely get enough votes to advance to the second balloting contest in May, but her presidential campaign has been regularly criticized by French Jewish leaders because of her father’s position in the party.

Marine Le Pen had asked her father to step down as the honorary president of the political party in 2015 over routinely making comments minimalizing the holocaust. Jean-Marie Le Pen said gas chambers were merely a “detail” of World War II and publicly defended Philippe Pétain, the French general convicted of treason for providing aid to Nazis forces in occupied France. But Jean-Marie Le Pen maintained his position of authority in the National Front party after a court ruled against his daughter’s bid to remove him.

Marine Le Pen may have distanced herself from the Jewish population further Thursday when she announced that French citizens won’t be able to maintain their citizenship in any country that was not part of the European Union and specifically stated that French Jews will have to give up their citizenship in Israel.

There were 475,000 Jews living in France, giving the country the third-largest Jewish population in the world after Israel and the United States.