Opponents say party is ‘political heir’ of Vichy regime, which collaborated with Nazis, amid efforts to halt its rise

Political opponents of Marine Le Pen’s poll-leading National Rally are seizing on the far-right party’s history to try to mobilise voters against it in the run-up to France’s snap election.

Leftwing and centrist politicians have sought to remind voters that when Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founded the party – originally named Front National – in 1972, its ranks included former members of a Waffen SS military unit under Nazi command during the second world war.