Paris (AFP)
Marine Le Pen hailed Thursday evening the "memory" of the victims of the Vel d'Hiv roundup, denouncing anti-Semitism and "the new preachers of hate" who "attack our fellow Jews".
The "commemoration of the Vel d'Hiv roundup reminds us of the duty to remember in the face of the most abject and abominable expression of anti-Semitism", wrote the president of the RN on Twitter.
"It obliges us to the most firm and intractable determination in the fight never ended against this scourge and these new preachers of hatred who, today in France, target and attack our fellow Jews", she said added.
The president of the National Rally had sparked a controversy in April 2017 during the presidential campaign, saying: "France is not responsible for the Vel d'Hiv".
Emmanuel Macron, then a candidate in the same ballot, saw it as "a serious political and historical mistake".
Thursday morning the head of state reminded on Twitter that on July 16 and 17, 1942, "more than thirteen thousand Jews were arrested. By French people, by the French state. Because they were Jews. More than eight a thousand were detained at Vel d'Hiv before being deported to Auschwitz. Let us never forget. "
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