France's far-right Rassemblement National (RN) on Wednesday, June 18, withdrew support for one of its candidates in a looming legislative election over an anti-Semitic social media message posted in 2018.

The newspaper Libération reported that candidate Joseph Martin wrote on social media in October 2018 that "gas did justice to the victims of the Holocaust." The publication was deleted mid-day on Wednesday.

Joseph Martin was supposed to be an RN candidate for the Assemblée Nationale for the department of Morbihan, in Brittany. "He no longer has the support of the Rassemblement National, he is suspended and will be summoned with a view to his exclusion," an RN spokesperson told Agence France-Presse, adding it was too late to withdraw Martin's candidacy.

Martin stood as an RN candidate in 2022 legislative elections. He won 15.35% of the vote in the first round, but failed to qualify for the second round.

President Emmanuel Macron called national polls following the RN's victory in European elections. The first round is set to take place on June 30.

Macron on Wednesday denounced the "scourge of anti-Semitism" after authorities charged two 13-year-old boys with the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb. The attack, suspected to have been motivated by anti-Semitism, has shocked the Jewish community and added to tensions ahead of the snap election that could bring the RN to power for the first time.