“I would like to sit down and have a drink with Marine Le Pen,” the 56-year-old star said Monday on Canal Plus’s Grand Journal. “Maybe I misunderstood Marine Le Pen, I’m not sure. I don’t want to start a war. I want peace in the world.”
Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s anti-euro, anti-immigrant National Front, welcomed an invitation to meet with Madonna, after earlier claiming the American pop star had maligned her.
Madonna, who portrayed Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead in a video in 2012 and then called her party “fascist” on a French talk show this week, said she has perhaps misjudged the politician and suggested they meet.
“I would like to sit down and have a drink with Marine Le Pen,” the 56-year-old star said Monday on Canal Plus’s Grand Journal. “Maybe I misunderstood Marine Le Pen, I’m not sure. I don’t want to start a war. I want peace in the world.”
Having hesitated at first, Le Pen now says she would accept Madonna’s invitation “with pleasure.”
Le Pen’s shift comes as she attempts to take center stage in French politics with polls showing her party taking the lead in local elections. Le Pen, who took over the party’s helm in 2011, has steered clear of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s anti-Semitic stance. Her father, the party’s founder, was sentenced several times in French courts for Holocaust denial.
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