Le Pen next in line to chair European Parliament

Unless left-wing parliamentarians can pull off some last-minute procedural wrangling, French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen will chair a European Parliament session in July. As the oldest member, Le Pen is entitled to chair the body between June parliamentary elections and the election of a new president.

Le Pen is notorious for, among other things, calling the Holocaust a "detail of History" and was once suspended from the parliament for assaulting a political rival. All the same, the Green Party's explanation for the rule-change they're trying to enact is a little weak:

The Greens co-president, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, said "we would like to see the youngest deputy open the session, not because of Le Pen, but because it's a sign of the future".

Yes. Nothing to do with Le Pen, I'm sure.

To be fair to the Europarl, a similar custom is how the United States wound up with an 92-year-old ex-klansmen, albeit a reformed one, as president pro tempore of the senate and third in the line of succession for the presidency.

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