- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday April 25 2000 02.17 BST
Mr Le Pen, 71, whose party split last year after he was involved in a power struggle with his deputy, Bruno Mégret, said he was "mad with rage" after reading the banning order, signed by the prime minister, Lionel Jospin, and published in the official state bulletin.
The national assembly's approval of the decree is considered a formality, but Mr Le Pen said he was preparing "a long and hard judicial battle" for reinstatement.
The timing of the ban, a week before the first congress of the diminished Front, appeared to be an attempt by the government to discredit Mr Le Pen before a series of Front celebrations, including the national Joan of Arc march in Paris on May 1.
Mr Le Pen, who five years ago was seen as a possible member of a coalition government, has been struggling to regain his position on the right since he assaulted a Socialist woman candidate during campaigning for local elections in Mantes-la-Jolie, west of Paris, in 1997.
He received a three-month suspended jail sentence and was disqualified from public office for a year. His mandate as a regional councillor in Marseille was removed in February, detaching him from the strongest area of the Front's anti-immigrant crusade.
He also faces possible prosecution by the European parliament for the revisionist views on the Holocaust he expressed during a visit to Germany.
His troubles have been compounded by the drift of far-right voters towards the breakaway Gaullist movement led by the former interior minister Charles Pasqua, who once said that his political views were close to those of Mr Le Pen.
Last month Mr Le Pen said he would stand for president in 2002, for the fourth time.
