Madonna’s already garnered moral criticism from clubland’s elite this year, but now she’s attracting ire from some particularly insalubrious corners.

During her performance at Paris’ Stade de France on Saturday, Madonna broadcast an image of National Front leader Marine Le Pen with a giant swastika superimposed onto her face. The image subsequently segued into a picture heavily redolent of Adolf Hitler. BBC News reported this weekend that the far-right party are now taking Madonna to court, claiming defamation.

National Front vice-president Florian Phillippot claimed that the lawsuit would be filed later this week. In his words:  “This is just another provocation in Madonna’s world tour so that people will talk about her. Marine Le Pen will defend not only her own honour but her supporters and the millions of National Front voters.” He also described the montage as provoking “such an odious comparison”.

The whole incident leaves all sorts of nasty tastes in the mouth. The National Front are, for sure, one of the most venal and insidious forces in mainstream European politics. Equally, one can’t help but wish Madonna – whose eye for opportunism and hunger for the sensational have been difficult to avoid in 2012 – had left somebody else to make the point in a more judicious fashion.