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It has been described as a far-right, political death-match somewhere between King Lear and Dallas.

France’s far-right Front National has been plunged into an all-out war between its president, Marine Le Pen, and her ageing father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, after he made inflammatory comments belittling the Holocaust and defended Marshal Pétain, the leader of France’s Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime.

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Then in an interview this week with Rivarol, a notorious far-right weekly, Jean-Marie Le Pen attacked his daughter’s criticism of his Holocaust comments, saying: “You’re only betrayed by your own.”

He defended Philippe Pétain, the leader of France’s Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime in the 1940s, who was convicted of treason after the war. He told the magazine: “I have never considered Marshal Pétain a traitor. He was treated too severely after the liberation.”

He also lamented: “We’re being governed by immigrants and children of immigrants at all levels.” Citing France’s Spanish-born Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, he asked: “What is his attachment to France?”

He said France should join with Russia to save the “white world” and said he understood why some fought democracy.