"It does not in any way exonerate the personal and personal responsibility of the French who participated in the vile round-up of the Vel d'Hiv and all the atrocities committed during that period", she added.
Though Jacques Chirac owned up to the state's responsibility for the Vel d'Hiv roundup in 1995, Le Pen is relitigating the issue, tapping into buried resentments by attempting to deflect responsibility for France's wartime crimes to individual collaborators and Vichy officials. "It is not France".
Francis Kalifat, president of Crif, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, condemned Le Pen's remark as "revisionist"."It unmasks the true face of National Front", he wrote on Twitter in reference to Le Pen's party.
In response, Israel's foreign ministry said "we condemn the declarations by Marine Le Pen stating that France is not responsible for the deportation of Jews from its territory during the Holocaust".
Violent clashes have broken out inside and outside a venue that was supposed to hold a rally by French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
"I consider that France and the Republic were based in London during the (Nazi) occupation", she said.
Altogether 76,000 Jews deported from France were killed.
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The State Department tried to manage expectations even before the April 6 US attack on Al Shayrat airfield in Syria threw a wrench into bilateral relations.
Ms Le Pen had acknowledged the support of Flosse's Tahoeraa Huiraatira party, saying Flosse was the spokesperson for a majority of French Polynesians.
Polls show far-left Melenchon closing in on the frontrunners, 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of the April 23 first round, adding new drama to a rollercoaster campaign.
A self-described patriot, Le Pen hopes to extract France from the European Union and do away with France's membership in the shared euro currency. Marine Le Pen pushed him out of the National Front party as part of an effort to appeal to more mainstream voters.
"For me as a professor of education sciences, the question I would ask the next day (after a Le Pen victory) is: 'How do you teach in French schools under Le Pen?'" he told AFP.
As forms confirmed the unknown competition tightening simply fourteen days before voting presidential leader Emmanuel Macron detailed his priorities for his first couple of months in-office if chosen. (Onwards!) attends a prime-time televised debate for the candidates at French 2017 presidential election in La Plaine Saint-Denis, near Paris, France, April 4, 2017.
"We must not be complacent or minimise what the National Front is today", Mr Macron said. They clashed with Le Pen's security team, throwing punches and firing teargas, prompting the evacuation of the hall, the newspaper said.
"If one doubted whether Marine Le Pen is far-right, there is no doubt anymore", Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon told RTL radio.
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