Michel Durafour (11 April 1920 in Saint-Etienne , Loire ? 27 July 2017) was a French politician. He served in many government posts under Jacques Chirac , Raymond Barre and Michel Rocard , and was Mayor of Saint-Etienne from 1964 to 1977. ^[1]

In 1988, while serving as Minister of Public Service in Rocard's government, Durafour was the subject of a reply to his suggestion to "exterminate the Front National" ^[2] which provoked a "storm of criticism". ^{[3] [4]} Jean-Marie Le Pen , a right wing defeated presidential candidate , referred to Durafour as "Mr. Durafour-crematoire", a play on words as "four" is the French term for oven, and "oven crematorium" is a reference to the Nazi death camps of the Second World War. ^[4] Alain Juppe responded by stating that "There are words one does not make jokes about" while the French Socialist Party spokesman Jean-Jack Queyranne stated that "Mr. Le Pen is showing what he is at heart: a racist and an anti-Semite". ^[4] Le Pen himself stated that he was responding to Durafour's own accusations regarding Le Pen's role in World War II, and that "Mr. Durafour is not just an imbecile but a bum". ^[4]

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