France's Jean-Marie Le Pen suspended from own far-right party

France's National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was suspended from the far-right party his daughter Marine now leads after a disciplinary hearing today.
Patience with the 86-year-old rabble-rouser has run thin within the party in recent weeks after he reiterated his view that the Nazi gas chambers were merely a "detail of history" and made comments about defending the "white world".
A special meeting of party members will be called "within three months" to decide whether to strip him of the title of honorary president of the National Front (FN), a party statement said.
Le Pen described his supension as a "criminal act".

The far-right patriarch showed up today for a meeting at the FN headquarters in Nanterre, west of Paris, to discuss upcoming regional elections.
But he refused to stick around for a disciplinary hearing over his controversial outbursts that was called by his daughter Marine Le Pen, who took over the leadership in 2011.

He said the hearing was "detrimental to my dignity".
The FN patriarch also told reporters there was no question of his retirement, saying "they will have to kill me" to silence him.
Yesterday, Marine Le Pen said that her father no longer spoke for the anti-immigration party, which opposes France's membership of the European Union.

"Jean-Marie Le Pen should no longer be able to talk in the name of the National Front, his comments are against the fixed (party) line," she told French radio.
Marine Le Pen has been actively trying to distance the party from its racist and anti-Semitic image as she plans her bid for the next French presidential election in 2017.