France's National Front to sue Madonna over swastika video

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

U.S. pop singer Madonna performs during a concert for her MDNA world tour at the Stade de France Stadium in Saint-Denis, near Paris, July 14, 2012. Reuters photo

France's far-right National Front said Sunday it plans to sue Madonna over a video at a concert in France showing the party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead.
 
"We cannot accept such an odious comparison," National Front vice-president Florian Philippot said, adding that the legal action against Madonna would be filed this week.
 
The video, which served as a backdrop for Madonna's performance of the song "Nobody Knows Me", flashed a picture of Le Pen's forehead bearing a swastika, followed by an image resembling Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
 
There was an audible gasp from the audience at the concert in the Stade de France in a Paris suburb on Saturday when the video appeared as part of Madonna's stage show.
 
Le Pen, who was a candidate in the French presidential election in May, had already warned the US superstar she was mulling legal action after the video was shown at Tel Aviv gig in May when Madonna kicked off her world tour.
 
"This is just another provocation in Madonna's world tour so that people will talk about her," Philippot charged, claiming that the stadium was "far from full" for Madonna's gig and that the tour was a "fiasco".
 
"Marine Le Pen will defend not only her own honour but her supporters and the millions of National Front voters," he added.
 
The "Material Girl" will next appear in France in Nice on August 21 as part of her "MDNA" tour which covers about 30 countries in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas and will wrap up in Australia in 2013.
 
Le Pen, the daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, lost her bid to win a seat in elections last month although the anti-immigrant and anti-EU party returned to parliament for the first time since 1998.