Israel’s ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, held a secret meeting this week at the Israeli Embassy in Paris with far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
The meeting was reported by Hebrew media outlets but was not publicized by the embassy, although the embassy later confirmed the meeting to the French Le Parisien outlet.
In the past, Israel avoided contact with far-right parties in France. However, as left-wing governments in Europe have increasingly turned against Israel, government officials began fostering ties with far-right figures. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told Israeli diplomats last year to begin official contacts with Le Pen’s party as well as far-right parties in Spain and Sweden.
The meeting was held as France launches the early stages of its presidential campaign, with Le Pen as a candidate. Le Pen has strongly criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s anti-Israel policies.
Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was notorious for his racist and antisemitic comments, including minimizing the Holocaust, for which he received criminal convictions. He was dubbed by his opponents as “the devil of the Republic.” However, Marine not only publicly rejected her father’s antisemitic views but even expelled him from the National Front party he founded.
After Marine took leadership of the party in 2011, her father refused to halt his provocative antisemitic remarks, including that the Nazi gas chambers used to murder Jews during the Holocaust “were just a detail of World War II.” His hateful rhetoric led to a public family and political feud, and in 2015, the party, led by his daughter, voted to expel him.
After her father’s death in 2025, Marine said she regretted her decision because of the pain it caused her father. “I will never forgive myself for this decision, because I know it caused him immense pain,” she told the Journal du dimanche newspaper. “Making this decision was one of the most difficult of my life. And until the end of my existence, I will always ask myself the question: ‘Could I have done this differently?’”
(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
