If you have followed the history of the far right and indelibly fascist FN in France anytime at all then you will suspect that this is just artifice; a dumb show to give Marine some separation from her father’s reprehensible past.

But the 86-year-old former paratrooper told Le Figaro in an interview that he was disappointed by his daughter and would not quit politics, showing that the family feud that could emerge as a threat to the FN’s bid for power is not necessarily over.

Marine Le Pen, who in 2011 took over as FN party leader from her father, has been trying to persuade him to retire both from the December regional polls and from politics altogether.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has been convicted for incitement to racial hatred, last week defended his view that Nazi gas chambers were a mere “detail” of war. That prompted his daughter to demand that his role in the party be discussed at a meeting of FN executives on Friday.

More: UPDATE 2-France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen Steps Back to Ease Family Feud