this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk from paris. i'm stephen sackur. the mood of the french public right now is very far from sunny. the economy is barely growing, unemployment is high, and voters are fed up

with politics as usual. all of which is fuelling the popularity of the far—right national front, led by marine le pen. well, my guest today is her father, jean—marie le pen, the founder of the national front. father and daughter, well, they used to be the closest of allies, but now they're at war with each other. it is a compelling french soap opera, but what does it say about the changing face of the far right? jean—marie le pen, welcome to hardtalk. you have had 60 years in politics, and here you sit, suspended from the party that you created and at war. he chuckles

yeah, and at war with your own daughter. how do you feel today? that's true, but i come back to this emotional feeling you must have, because whether it is temporary or not, you are, at the moment, not able to play a role in your party. but worse than that, you have this terrible fight with your own daughter. he chuckles

well, you are smiling, and that interests me that you are smiling, because i wonder if you can tell me what went wrong in your relationship with marine. because, as recently as two years ago, when she was leader and you were cooperating with her, you said, "we are together. "we have one political access. "there is no problem between us." so what happened 7 what went wrong?

but if i may say so, it strikes me that the fundamental problem between you and marine isn't ideology or politics. it's personal. to quote nonna mayer, who's a political expert at sciences po, she says, "jean—marie le pen is no more "the master in his own party,

and there is a fundamental "jealousy toward his daughter." but you didn't like the fact that she and her close colleagues used this phrase "detoxify". they said they had to detoxify the image of the national front. you know that she was trying to move away from the things that you have said in the past about the gas chambers and the holocaust, the accusations of anti—semitism.

she wanted nothing to do with any of that. and then in the last 12 months, you came back in the public arena and repeated these things, saying that the gas chambers were just a detail of the history of the war. why did you insist on bringing this subject up again? monsieur le pen, the reality is this, you know, the french courts have made their decisions about you. in the 1960s, you were convicted of being an apologist for war crimes. in the 1980s,

you were found guilty of denying the holocaust. you've been fined, you've paid a price for your views. non, je... why...why do you not...? even if you hold these views, which most french people find reprehensible, why can you not keep quiet now? you're not the leader, your daughter is the leader, and she believes — and this was the phrase that she used — you are committing political suicide for your party by using the language you use. after she moved against you and tried to expel you from the party, you said, "she may want me dead,

"but i will not cooperate." do you really believe your daughter wants you dead? the thing is, though the french public are, in a sense, they're gripped by this story because it's such a human story, and i still don't quite understand how a relationship between the two of you that was so strong and so close has become so poisonous and so bad.

the one of her closest deputies, florian philippot, said this, he said, "herfather," that is you, jean—marie, "is destroying everything that she has built. "it is unbearable for her psychologically to have this "constant shadow pressing down on her. "that's why she wants him out the party, because then "she can be liberated."

that does raise an interesting question. given the scale of the fallout between the two of you, do you now support your own daughter's bid for the french presidency? we know she wants to run. will you support her? can you accept, monsieur le pen, that the front national, the national front, has changed? your daughter has changed it, and it is quite clear that the membership of the party now supports her in her battle with you. there was one poll which showed that 94%... non. 94% of the membership who voted on the issue supported the abolition of your post of honorary president.

it seems to me you are struggling to acknowledge what appears to be a basic truth proven by the results in the ballot box, and that is that... non, mais...! hang on. ..that is that marine le pen is more popular than you ever were. she, in the last presidential election, won 6.4 million votes. you never won 6.4 million votes. she attracts more french

people to the cause of the front national than you ever did. excuse me, but... in the last...in the last european... in the last european elections, the front national, led by marine le pen, came first place, 25% of the vote. you never got close to that. he chuckles let's think about the message that she delivers, and i wonder whether you have a problem with it.

you know, she's decided to emphasise economic arguments, notjust the old policies you had, on immigration and security, but she's telling the french people that there is an alternative when it comes to economics. she's anti—austerity, she's anti—globalisation, she's anti the euro. and i wonder whether you believe that she's on the right track here. she's trying to pull in voters from the left as well as from the right, and she's saying to the french people, "our party isn'tjust obsessed with immigration, "it is a party that has policies on all the big issues, "particularly the economy."

er... monsieur le pen,

a simple question. are you an islamophobe? then, if you're not... if you're not an islamophobe, why do you keep saying that france's cultural identity is at risk if we do not reverse what you call this torrent of immigration? "we could be beaten," you say, "without there even being "the need for a revolution or a war." it seems to me you are suggesting to the french public that the immigrant challenge facing europe is, first of all, basically about muslims flooding in, a torrent, you say, flooding into europe, and that france's very identity is at risk.

and that's really not true, is it? yeah, but, but...but just think... butjust think about the figures. the french government has said it will take 30,000 refugees, mostly from syria, over the next two years, 30,000 in a country of 60 million, and the germans are taking 800,000, maybe a million, so where is this torrent that you talk about in france?

there...there are already — what? — maybe five million muslims living in france. french citizens, just as french as you are. how do you think they feel when you suggest to me that muslims... non. ..coming into france represent a fundamental threat to the survival of this country? you're saying... hang on. you're saying a muslim, a muslim who is born here, whose mother and father

are born here, he or she is still not really french? seems to me you are betraying one of the fundamental principles of the french republic. the republic is supposed to be blind to religion or to any cultural or special identity. every citizen of the republic is supposed to be equal, and you are suggesting to me that muslim members of the republic are not quite as equal as others. you talk a lot about history and the history of france.

and, forgive me, i don't mean this to sound rude at all, but you are an old man now. you're 87 years old, still going strong, but you're an old man, and some people say that there is a generational issue here, and this comes back

to you and marine because you tend to look back. your politics was formed in world war ii and the decolonisation and the algerian war, and that is your context and your history. but that is not the context of most french people today, who are a lot younger than you. and you refuse to call... you refuse to call... yes. and you, you are so obsessed with it, you refuse to call marshal petain a traitor. i mean, most french people would regard him as a traitor, but you do not. you have very strong views about the second world war, about france's history, but isn't it time for france to look forward? and you are a politician who always looks back.

well, let's end by looking forward. and i want to come back to marine, and i want to come back to the national front. the polls suggest that the party is in a stronger position today than it's ever been. and it looks as though marine, your daughter, has a very realistic chance of actually coming out number one in the first round of the presidential poll in 2017. these are extraordinary times. itjust seems to me incredible that you refuse to say to me that you will support her.

when did you last speak to marine? and how are your relations with her right now?

mm. you talk about it in the third person, as though it's not really you and her, not really father and daughter. but the bottom line, this is a family... a family quarrel, and one of you is going to have to make the first move to solve it. if she doesn't, in your view, put out her hand to reach out to you, is it possible that even at your grand age of 87, you might form a new party, a breakaway party, and leave the front national altogether?

stephen chuckles well, i... idi hope, i hope so too. jean—marie le pen, we have to end there, but thank you very much for being on hardtalk. merci bien. goodbye! they chuckle

hello there. winter continues to hold a firm grasp across the country. so it will be a freezing friday in store. yes, a frosty start with some freezing fog as well first thing in the morning, gradually lifting to sunny spells. but as we head towards the weekend, something a little less cold on the horizon but still under the influence of high pressure. still the wind direction coming from the north. the only exception into the far southwest. here we've got cloud and showery outbreaks of rain, sleet and snow for a time down to the southwest, some freezing fog lingering in the southeast, and some icy stretches. they will lift to sunny spells into the afternoon. could still see a few coastal showers across the far north and east, but on the whole, not a bad afternoon. a little more cloud pushing through. wales, the midlands and southern england are showery rain continues to the southwest here. we'll see highs of seven degrees, but after that bitterly cold start,

temperatures in many just a couple of degrees above freezing and that is going to lead to another cold frosty start into the weekend. once again, our weather front starts to drag more cloud in from the west though, here preventing those temperatures from falling too far but in sheltered central and eastern areas once again, a widespread hard frost on saturday morning. so saturday will gradually see more cloud pushing in on this weak weather front. not that much in the way of rain on it. a few spits and spots of showery rain from time to time. central and eastern areas starting off crisp with some sunshine but clouding over from the west. a little less cold here, where we've got that blanket of cloud, but don't expect a dramatic change quite just yet. we're looking at highs of around 7 or 8 degrees, with the best of the sunshine again between 2 and 4 celsius. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday and the week ahead, it looks likely that the wind direction will change

as south—westerly flow will drive in weather fronts to the far north and west, but mild air right across the country. so we will start to see a change by the middle part of the week for all of us. takes its time in arriving across central and southern england, but by the middle of the week we're back to double figures. but there will be a little bit of rain to go with it. take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news whole neighbourhoods burned to the ground — devastation in los angeles with wildfires still raging completely uncontained. at least five people have died and nearly 200,000 people are fleeing their homes. the president—elect donald trump said to be set tomorrow. and former us presidentjimmy carter will be buried in his hometown of plains, georgia, after a state funeral in washington. hello, i'm sumi somaskanda. we have some breaking news. the us supreme court rejected donald trump's request to hold his centres in his hush money quest in new york and it means the sentencing will now go ahead as planned on friday

morning in new york. the president—elect had urged the