France tells lawmaker to resign

PARIS, Feb. 9 (JTA) — France’s supreme legal body has ruled that a member of an extremist party was illegally elected to Parliament and must resign. The Constitutional Council said Jean-Marie Le Chevallier would have to step down, because of campaign spending irregularities, from the seat he won last June. The resignation of Chevallier, who is also mayor of the Mediterranean port city of Toulon, would leave the xenophobic, anti-Semitic National Front with no representation in the country’s National Assembly. The leader of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, described the ruling as an “ignominy worthy of totalitarian regimes.” The National Front, which advocates expelling some 4 million immigrants and reserving jobs and welfare for French-born nationals, regularly garners some 15 percent of the nationwide vote. Under France’s current electoral system, however, it was unable to gain more than one parliamentary seat in last year’s elections.