France's best known political dynasty shows signs of crumbling

As recently as last year, the different generations of the Le Pen family would have long discussions in the gardens of the house they all shared near Paris about politics and the future of their beloved far-right National Front (FN) party.

Marine Le Pen, the party's leader since 2011, lived in the former stables of the extensive property. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, party founder and political heavyweight even at the age of 86, had moved out following his divorce. Yet such were the bonds that he continued to keep an office there.

This week, that once-loving relationship at the heart of France's best-known political dynasty appeared to break down definitively as the two most recognised figures in the country's resurgent party began to sling the mud.

The 46-year-old Ms Le Pen accused her father of a strategy "somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide" after he reminded voters that he considered the Nazi gas chambers as a mere "detail of history".

On Thursday night, Ms Le Pen marched on: in a televised interview, she said that she planned to oppose his candidacy for the southern FN stronghold of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur in December's regional elections and invited him to "end his political responsibilities".

She also called for an extraordinary party meeting next week to begin disciplinary proceedings against him.

Mr Le Pen, now the FN's honorary president, retaliated by saying that the party could "implode" without him. "Marine Le Pen may want my death but she cannot count on any help from me," he said.

On Friday he said his daughter's attempt to "absolutely smash him" was about her currying favour with the French establishment, but without him the party was "nothing".

So can Ms Le Pen and the FN prosper without the party's long-serving patriarch?

Since taking over four years ago, Ms Le Pen, a fast-talking woman with blonde hair and an electronic cigarette always at the ready, has tried to move away from her father's anti-Semitism.

The party may still be staunchly anti-immigration, but Ms Le Pen has started to push other policies such as jettisoning the euro in favour of the franc and giving the French state an even bigger role as a promoter - and protector - of national industry.

The "detoxification", as she calls her attempt to reach a more mainstream audience, has gone down well at a time when many voters feel that President Francois Hollande's Socialist party and the opposition centre-right UMP have failed to address their basic needs.

The FN last year recorded its best performance at municipal elections since 1995. A month later, it swept to victory in the European parliamentary elections, winning almost a quarter of the vote. Recent opinion polls suggest that Ms Le Pen would even win the first round of a presidential election - though would be unlikely to win a second.

Jerome Fourquet of polling firm Ifop argues that such successes have allowed Ms Le Pen to step out from her father's shadow. "Today, there is another Le Pen at the top of the party," he says. "Even if her father played a central role in the party's history, he carries significantly less weight than he used to."

Among other things, Mr Fourquet points out that an opinion poll conducted a year ago showed that more than half FN supporters wanted Mr Le Pen to leave the party - compared with only 34 per cent in the case of the wider electorate.

James Shields, professor of French politics at Aston University, agrees. "Jean-Marie Le Pen still carries real weight with the FN's historic core, but that core is increasingly depleted now," he says.

"Marine Le Pen is looking elsewhere to build a new party faithful. This is a blessing in disguise for Marine Le Pen, a golden opportunity to show how serious she is about transforming the FN."

Even so, Pascal Perrineau, professor of politics at Paris's Sciences Po University and an expert on the FN, argues that the Le Pen war could have significant financial consequences for the party given the patriarch's renown for fundraising. "It is going to hurt," he says of Mr Le Pen's possible expulsion.

As the family feud deepens, Ms Le Pen faces an additional complication in the form of Marion Marechal-Le Pen.

The 25 year old, who was elected national deputy for the southern Vaucluse region at just 22, is an undisputed star in the FN. Yet she is far closer to the overwhelmingly white, middle-class voters of south-eastern France who have traditionally backed Mr Le Pen, her grandfather, than to the largely northern and leftwing fans of Ms Le Pen, her aunt.

So far, the youngest member of the Le Pen political dynasty has remained silent, saying only that her grandfather's comments about the gas chambers had been a "useless provocation".

But Mr Perrineau of Sciences Po thinks that may be shortlived. "There is clearly a discrete conflict going on at the moment between Marine and Marion," he says.

"They are polar opposites and, sooner or later, they will confront each other."

For now, though, Ms Le Pen shows no signs of pulling back. In a recent interview with the FT, the FN's leader said: "I'm not here to run a boutique. I'm here to reach power." Ousting her father now seems to have become part of the plan.

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