PARIS, March 11 (AP) — France's far-right National Front party has definitively severed its ties to firebrand founder Jean-Marie Le Pen as it tries to revive its fortunes. The party also re-elected his daughter, Marine Le Pen, to a new term as president at party congress where she was its only candidate for the post. A new 100-member governing council was also named. The party tweeted on Sunday that more than 79 per cent of members who participated in a vote approved new party statutes that included abolishing Jean-Marie Le Pen's position of party president for life. The party expelled him in 2015 over anti-Semitic remarks but he kept the honourary position. Sunday's vote is a crushing blow for the 89-year-old, who founded the party in 1972 and was runner-up in the 2002 French presidential election.
