Rabat - The Front National (FN) party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, suggested the attack on Charlie Hebdo was planned by France's secret services.
Le Pen senior was quoted in a Russian newspaper as saying the attacks on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo "bore the hallmarks of secret services."
"The shooting at Charlie Hebdo resembles a secret service operation but we have no proof of that," he told the Russian newspaper.
The French politician, who led the National Front Party from its foundation in 1972 until 2011, doubted brother Said and Cherif Kouachi could have planned and carried out the raid on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo without intelligence services knowing anything about it.
He added the fact of finding the identity card of the brothers at the scene might be a possible proof of intelligence involvement.
Le Pen compared this to 9/11 attacks when one of the passports of the hijackers was found on the ground in New York.
"I don't think French authorities are the organizers of these crimes, but they allowed these crimes to occur," he told Komsomolskaïa Pravda newspaper. "These are only speculations."
He also said in the interview that the 1.5 million who took part in the Paris march against terror were not "Charlies" but Charlie Chaplins".
Jean-Marie Le Pen issued a statement denying the comments published in the Russian newspaper that were later picked up by French media, saying his opinion got lost in translation.
"I do not validate re-translations in French of interviews that were already translated from French into Russian," he said.
The 86-year-old is a major figure in French political life. He attempted five times to become the president of France.
He and his daughter were accused of taking advantage of the terrorist attacks to further their anti-immigration claims and anti-Islamic rhetoric.