france's far right front nasional party has severed its last formal ties to its founder john marie le pen after members voted to strip him of his honorary presidency le pen left the party for almost forty years his departure comes as party members voted to reelect his daughter marry in to a new term as party chief for nessie now it's considering a number of changes at its congress in leo aimed at rebranding and broaden its appeal. our correspondent lisa lewis is joining me from paris lisa the front nessie not wants to change the image of the party now they've made a big step in this direction by finally managing to strip the party founder john marie le pen marine father of his title as the party's honorary president but what other steps have they tried to take. sends out over fifty thousand question as to party activists asking them about the teacher line of the party and the results of these questionnaires are for example that the party activists very much are in favor of that to just notes from the front yard that is to say the anti immigrations that ons at the get sick point a few and

members of france's far right front nessie now have voted to remove the party's founder john marie le pen as honorary president the pen who led the party for almost forty years had his membership removed in twenty fifteen after he cast doubt on the whole the cost today's decision severs his last official tied to the party the move is one of a number of changes under consideration at the party's congress and legal aimed at recasting the party's image. our correspondent lisa lewis is joining me from paris lisa the front nessie not once to change the image of the party now they've made a big step in this direction by finally managing to strip the party founder john marie le pen marines father of his title as the party's honorary president but what other steps have they tried to take. sends out over fifty thousand question as to party activists asking them about the pizza line of the party and the results of these questionnaires for example are the party activists very much in favor of that to just stance of the from the front of that is to say the anti immigration stance at the get sick poin

her party members in a little while from now le pen is hoping to broaden her party's appeal as part of the rebranding party founder and marines father john marie le pen's last remaining pace was taken away from him he was expelled in twenty fifteen because of anti semitic remarks i think a lot of that illegal in the north of france where that conference is taking place of course but it is david chase to tell us more about this rebranding of the national front. martino's you can see behind me marine le pen has now taken to the stage and has launched this rebranding of the first thing she did of course was remove farther from the constitution the party is no longer the on re president and it's not surprising that she wants to do that to try and detoxify the. is effect on the national front he of course is in paris at the moment he hasn't made a surprise if you do then i think when you might be signing copies of the first volume of his biography which is to be a top seller here in france and in that order biography he says that he was a supporter of the vichy regime calls were nazi collaborators during the second world war so sort of remarks plus

process far right for an austrian all poxy because it's remaining ties with the founder john marie le pen in a bid to shed its racist image his daughter and possibly done marine le pen wants to brand the clock to the venue mainstreaming. in the plot thickens in the u.k. his russian spy drama traces of a nerve agent are found in the pub visited by surrogates preval and his daughter shortly before the collapse due to poisoning a week ago. i'm edith q. moneyball come to the program in colombia counting is under way in historic legislative elections the first to allow participation by former fark rebels the former rebels are guaranteed ten seats regardless of the results fark agreed to end its decades long interaction in return for status as a political party in a controversial twenty sixteen peace deal with president juan manuel santos about his electoral campaign was marred by protests and it is expected to do badly. president santos said the election was a crossroads for colombia. this is the first time in half a century where the fork instead of sabotaging the elections they're participat

and at the same party congress in leo the front desk now has voted to strip john marie le pen of his role as honorary president this ends his last formal connection to the far right party for nesta now has fought for several years to remove le pen's title after he made repeated comments downplaying the holocaust police in england have identified more than two hundred witnesses in the investigation into the poisoning of a russian double agent and his daughter circuit and are in a critical but stable condition after they were found slumped on a bench in the city of solsbury last weekend police are said to have found traces of nerve agent in the restaurant where the pair ate before they collapsed in broad daylight. forensic teams examine the cemetery unsolved barry where sergei script paul's wife and son are buried it's one of several sites in the city where authorities are looking for clues they include the restaurant where st paul and his daughter yulia had lunch before heading to a pub for a drink after an emergency meeting of senior ministers british home secretary amber rudd said i

changing that name now the reason marine le pen was trying to rebrand and change all of this is she wants to detox defy the image her party has because of her father john marie le pen now he stayed away from this conference and he was stripped of the honorary presidency by by them a juror in the course of the proceedings and he actually has been launching his own autobiography the first volume at least in paris which is turning out to be a bestseller in that autobiography he says that he was very much in favor of the he she regime of course you collaborated with the nazis in the second world war adding to the impact of the remark you made about the holocaust as the. detail of history so i don't think despite marina penn's best effort she could really rid herself of the impact of the father who found his body and let it for nearly four decades no matter what she does what she goes through and what policy policy she's tries to push through the memory of her father will stay as a troublesome haunting spirit no matter what she tries to do it does still make her brand even with a new name slightly talks are. you watching out is there are still ahead for you prote

process far right for an astronaut hot seat because it's remaining ties with the founder john marie le pen in a bid to shed its racist image his daughter and possibly.

rebranding the image of the whole party to detoxify it to distance it very much from her own father john marie le pen who's got a top top selling autobiography now in france where he shows his support for the vichy regime and nazi and nazi collaborators so that's why she wants to sort of completely cut all ties with her father change the name of the party and try and reach out and gain more alliances with other political parties she realizes this is the way to remember in the last elections she more than doubled the vote for the national front some thirty four percent of the vote is behind that's more than ten point six million people now that was the high point since then there's been some bruising divisions within the party she's losing control that's why she's having to rebranded and that the whole point about that is that she feels that the policies should remain the same but the name the national front that brand and her father was simply too toxic for her to get the sort of support she needed to make an inroad into french politics. second round of voting looks likely in sierra leone with result

john marine le pen abolishing the post of honorary presidency and effectively stripping him of his job. as i'll talk to our correspondent in paris lisa lewis it's good to see you lisa so what is marie le pen hoping to achieve by giving her name rather a new name. well she wants to show that this can really be a fresh start for the party she said in her speech used to be a protest party now we have become an opposition party and we want to become with this new name a party of government obviously she's also addressing concerns about herself since the debate before the elections last summer where she performed really poorly facing in iraq or the current president that word doubts and there are doubts among members of the foreign asinine or the national rally now that she actually wanted to go through with this that she wanted to become president now in her speech today she said three times our declared target particular target is to take seize power really to become a governing party and she wants to dissipate these doubts about her own very own personality lisa does this name change also come with a change of political direction or is it a case of the same product in a new package i