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The ceremony in tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen began in Paris
A compact crowd of several hundred people followed Thursday the mass paid in tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen, historic founder of the National Front, in and in front of the Notre-Dame du Val de Grâce church, in Paris, noted a journalist from the AFP. Died on January 7 at the age of 96, this historic figure of the French extreme right was already buried on Saturday in the cemetery of his hometown of Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan) after a mass celebrated in the stricter family privacy. Her three daughters, Marine Le Pen and her sisters Marie-Caroline and Yann, however, wanted another tribute, in Paris, open to the public. Only invited people could enter the church, the vast majority being onlookers. men, were confined to the square, on which two giant screens stood broadcasting the ceremony live. In addition to the members of the National Rally, such as its president Jordan Bardella or the deputy Thomas Ménage, all the groups of the extreme right were represented, including Marine Le Pen’s opponent, Éric Zemmour, but also Bruno Mégret, former number two of the FN who had broken with Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1998 or Carl Lang, also a dissident. The historian specializing in the extreme right Jean-Yves Camus was also present in the church. Among the people present outside, negationist figures like Thomas Joly, president of the France party, or Yvan Benedetti, its founder. “Repressed with the outcasts of the religious tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen in Paris,” tweeted the first with a photo also showing Jérôme Bourbon, the boss of the far-right weekly Rivarol. Remaining in the street near the church, the former comedian Dieudonné, convicted of anti-Semitism, told journalists that “he was a free man” in the middle of a “political landscape that was perhaps too narrow.” “I will not dwell on the political commitments of Mr. Le Pen, which are not within my competence, except that they have always been motivated by the love of France,” assured the abbot. Christophe Kowalczyk, at the start of the service. During this mass, Bruno Gollnisch, old traveling companion of the “menhir”, Marie-Caroline Le Pen, Marion Maréchal, her granddaughter, Louis Aliot, former companion of Marine Le Pen and Anne-Marie Arnautu, very close to the founder of the FN, were to read texts, we learned from the National Rally. Will notably be read, according to the mass booklet, the prayer of the paratroopers, the prayer to Joan of Arc and a prayer from the Catholic writer Charles Péguy, “The faith that I love best is God, it is hope.”Several of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s grandchildren took turns to read part of the homily, one of them calling to pray “for France”. “May the French know how to choose wise and just men to govern and guide them,” he read. Around the church, before the start of the ceremony, we could hear Verdi’s Slave Choir, which the Frontist leader used in his meetings, and see a cart richly decorated to the glory of the imperial guard or even stickers “black foot forever”, while Jean-Marie Le Pen, a former soldier, defended French Algeria. pab/lum/jmt/bow
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