Marine Le Pen
Marine Le PenReuters

French far right leader Marine Le Pen stirred up a barrage of outrage for appearing at the monument to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland on Friday, where she placed a memorial wreath.

Her visit drew anger from European Jewish leaders, with one calling her visit an “affront” to the Jews who were systematically murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, according to media reports.

Le Pen, the leader of the far right National Rally (RN) party and a candidate in next year’s French presidential election, made the visit during a trip to Warsaw hosted by the Polish government, which is meeting with European far right and nationalist parties on Saturday.

She placed the wreath at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial alongside a Polish military honor guard.

During the visit, Le Pen also visited a memorial to Poles who were killed by the Soviet Union during the war.

The meeting will be hosted by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice party.

Kaczynsk’s embrace of Le Pen is an about face after longstanding bitter relations over Le Pen’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For years, Le Pen has attempted to put the anti-Semitic legacy of her party behind her, with uneven results. In 2017, Le Pen found herself in hot water after claiming France shouldn’t be held responsible for its role in gathering French Jews to be deported to Nazi concentration camps, the Associated Press reported.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)