Le Pen: Photo of dead boy making Europeans 'feel guilty'

Popular French far right leader Marine Le Pen, pressing her anti-immigration platform, says the widely shared photo of a dead Syrian refugee is being used to make Europeans “feel guilty.”

National Front leader Marine Le Pen speaking with reporters, January 9, 2015. (photo credit: JTA/Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

In a sweeping speech at a National Front party gathering in Marseille, Le Pen decries what she calls a “migratory submersion” and European leaders being lax toward migrants.

She criticizes “politicians who throw the death of a child in your face,” referring to the photo of 3-year-old Aylan, who drowned trying to reach Greek islands last week.

The image has drawn greater attention to the plight of Syrians refugees.

A paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, 3, after a number of migrants died and a smaller number were reported missing after boats carrying them to the Greek island of Kos capsized, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. (AP/DHA)

A paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, 3, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. (AP/DHA)

The weekend gathering laid out policies before regional elections in December, after Le Pen kicked her father Jean-Marie Le Pen out of the party he founded.

— AP

Le Pen: Photo of dead boy making Europeans ‘feel guilty’

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