Jean Marie Le Pen, a historic figure in French politics, died yesterday morning at the age of 96. The founder of the Front National party, marked by decades of debate, bringing together and dividing French society. Here is a look back at his political beginnings, his speeches and the reactions of French citizens.
For many years, Jean Marie Le Pen had been battling numerous health scares. But it was yesterday that he died. His daughter, Marine Le Pen, was travelling in Mayotte when she learned of her father’s death on the plane back to Paris. According to Pierrick Bonnot, a reporter for France Info, who was also on the plane, saw the Rassemblement National president shed a few tears.
Speeches and condemnations
Jean Marie Le Pen’s many speeches have given him the image of a contentious speaker. In 1968, he was sentenced to two months in prison for publishing a record of Nazi songs. In 1987, he had to pay 3,000 francs for stating that ‘the real invasion that is taking place in our country is the formation of foreign towns’. He later compared abortion to genocide. In 1990, he was ordered to pay 1.2 million francs for having said that the gas chambers were ‘a detail of the Second World War’. In 2008, he was again convicted of denying the existence of a crime against humanity after stating that ‘the German occupation was not particularly inhumane’. To mention just a few. Jean Marie Le Pen has been convicted on numerous occasions for apology for war crimes, incitement to hatred and discrimination, anti-Semitism and public insults.
His beginnings and the Front National
Jean Marie Le Pen’s career was an eventful one: he was a fisherman, a flat quantity surveyor, a paratrooper in the Indochina and Algerian wars and the owner of a record publishing company. All this before politics. At the age of 27, Jean Marie was elected deputy for Paris, making him the youngest deputy in France in 1956. He quickly attracted attention for his radical views.
In 1972, he founded the Front National, a far-right political party, with the help of François Brigneau, a former Vichy militiaman, and Pierre Bousquet, a former SS waffen. Their aim? To unite nationalists, conservatives and anti-immigrationists behind Eurosceptic, anti-immigration and anti-establishment ideas. The party became a major player in French politics and attracted a number of French citizens, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s.
2002 marked a turning point in French politics, but also in the political life of Jean-Marie Le Pen: the Front National reached the second round of the presidential election. A wave of political action and mobilisation against the party followed. In 2011, Jean Marie left the presidency of his party to his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who wanted to ‘de-demonise’ the party by changing its initial name to Rassemblement National.
The reactions
‘That dirty racist is dead’, ‘Young people fuck the Front National’. These were the words heard on the streets of Paris, Marseille and Lyon yesterday. Following the announcement of Jean Marie Le Pen’s death, many French people gathered to celebrate the news. Songs, fireworks and even a giant apéritif, all activities that were later condemned by the Interior Minister.
For Alexandre, aged 24, Jean Marie Le Pen was an emblematic figure of the 5th Republic and French politics. ‘He was a man of convictions who never betrayed. He brought a certain clear-sightedness to some people. When you take extracts from these old interviews, you realise that certain situations were already a worry and indeed they have evolved as he said,’ claims Alexandre. But he is keen to stress that France is not losing a great man: ‘We can say that it is losing a figure who was very present in the past but who for several years no longer meant very much’.
Reflecting on the previous day’s demonstrations, Alexandre confided: ‘I think yesterday’s demonstrations were pretty serious. I think we have to take into account both the man we like or don’t like and respect for a family’s grief. I think it’s pretty morbid to show joy at someone’s death. Furthermore, I don’t think you can imagine members of the RN celebrating when Jean Luc Mélenchon is dead. The opposite would have caused a scandal, but no one’s saying anything’.
Manon, also 24, rejects the character of Jean Marie Le Pen: ‘I don’t want to waste my time giving importance to a racist, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. Personally, his death reminds me of nothing other than human nature and the fact that we’re all going to die in the end, even the big idiots’. However, she shares Alexandre’s opinion, citing excessive demonstrations. ‘I think it’s a bit too much if you put it in context that it’s just a human being dying, and on top of that he’s never really had any power because he’s never been president,’ she says.
Manon had the opportunity to go to these rallies but refused: ‘I asked myself, is it really necessary to go? I compared them with, for example, Putin and Netanyahu, who have declared wars and genocide in their name, and Jean Marie Le Pen, and I just decided not to go. However, I understand that some people want to celebrate his death because he hated them all his life and got crowds to rise up and hate them’.
In any case, one thing is certain: whether you like him or not, Jean Marie Le Pen is not about to be forgotten.
