PARIS (Reuters) - The 86-year-old founder of France's far-right FN party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was under observation in hospital on Thursday after an operation, in the midst of a family feud that has seen him clash with his daughter Marine, now the party leader.
Marine Le Pen said her father was doing fine. "He's doing well. He had a benign operation and there is no reason to worry," she told Reuters at the party headquarters.
While Marine did not say what the operation was, a source close to her father said this had to do with his heart, but was not an emergency operation.
The former paratrooper agreed on Monday to give up on seeking the party's ticket to stand in regional polls, taking some of the sting out of the damaging public row. But he has insisted he will not heed his daughter's other demand - that he quit politics altogether.