According to the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), which monitors Jewish security in France, over 8,000 Jews have left France for Israel following a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, and the attack on a kosher grocery store in Paris in 2015.
"Some had forgotten that Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen".
"I think France isn't responsible for the Vel d'Hiv", Le Pen told the LCI television channel Sunday.
"It's not France", Le Pen said in comments that were later condemned Monday by both Israel and Emmanuel Macron, who is an independent presidential candidate.
If the outcome of VBNM/the upcoming presidential election In France lies under the boots of the media, then Emmanuel Macron will win.
"I don't think France is responsible for the Vel d'Hiv", she said, referring to the 1942 corralling of thousands of French Jews in an indoor stadium before they were shipped off to concentration camps.
"This contradicts the historical truth as expressed in statements by French presidents who recognised the country's responsibility for the fate of the French Jews who perished in the Holocaust", a ministry spokesman said.
Far-right candidate for the presidential election Marine Le Pen speaks during a campaign meeting in Monswiller near Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, April 5, 2017.
Mr Melenchon is thought to have been buoyed by two televised debates which saw him get tough on Ms Le Pen.
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FIDH President Dimitris Christopoulos, who defends immigrants' rights, said that Le Pen's presidency will be a political defeat of human rights, speaking with AFP, he said that this "ideological battle" will become an existential priority for communities. The Kantar Sofres poll showed that Fillon and Melenchon would also defeat Le Pen in a runoff. "In reality, our children have been taught they had every reason to criticize it, to see only its darkest aspects".
Le Pen meanwhile and her closest allies hit the airwaves selling their vision of a nationalist France, unburdened by the European Union and the euro currency and tougher on crime and Islamists.
Macron said Monday: "It's the true face of the French far right, the face that I am fighting".
Jewish groups and the Israeli government criticised Le Pen.
Le Pen later issued a statement explaining that the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime "was not France".
French presidential election candidate for the right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party Francois Fillon (C) gestures during a rally at the Porte de Versailles in Paris, on April 9, 2017.
Former President Jacques Chirac and current leader Francois Hollande have both apologized, although Chirac's Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterand refused to acknowledge responsibility for the deportations, saying in 1994: "The republic had nothing to do with that".
Ian Deitch contributed from Jerusalem.
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