The bitter legal battle between France's embattled far-right figurehead Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front (FN) party entered its fourth round on Wednesday, as the elderly firebrand seeks to overturn his expulsion from the party he founded, reports Deutsche Welle.
Le Pen was expelled from the FN last year for making anti-Semitic comments in an interview with a far-right magazine. His daughter and the current party leader, Marine Le Pen, is pursuing the presidency in next year's national elections on and claims to be trying to distance herself and the FN from her father's most extreme views.
The 88-year-old told a court in Nanterre, west Paris, that his expulsion from the FN was against party procedures and was "marred by irregularities, both in style and substance."
The decision was made by an "execution squad," he said.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is hoping to rejoin the party and its leadership, and is demanding 2 million euros ($2.2 million) in compensation. "That's a minimum he is owed for the immense loss" to his morale and reputation, his lawyer, Frederic Joachim, said.
This is the fourth round of a hostile legal dispute. Jean-Marie Le Pen had won three earlier court hearings against the process in which he was dumped by his former party. However, after proposing a party vote on his status as an honorary president-for-life, members instead voted to definitively expel him.
As part of the latest round, Le Pen wants the court to confirm his reintroduction and position as the FN's honorary president.