Jean-Marie Le pen in front of his giant portrait in 1996.
AFP
Reactions were mixed to the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died on January 7 at the age of 96. The National Rally hailed a “visionary” and a “patriot”. The far right marks no distance from the founder of the National Front in its tributes.
Jean-Marie Le Pen “has always served France, defended its identity and sovereignty”, in “the French army in Indochina and Algeria”, or as “tribune of the people”, declared the president of the National Rally (ex-FN) Jordan Bardella.
Its vice-president Sébastien Chenu deplored the “disappearance of an immense patriot, visionary and an incarnation of courage” who “carried the hope of millions of French people”. The party saluted its founder who “will remain the one who, in the storms, held in his hands the little flickering flame of the French nation and who, through limitless will and tenacity, made the national movement an autonomous, powerful political family. and free.
Éric Zemmour (Reconquête) remembers that he “was among the first to alert France of the existential threats that awaited it”. “Beyond the controversies, he will have marked his time by the strength and constancy of his national convictions,” added Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (Debout la France).
Éric Ciotti, who allied himself with the RN during the last legislative elections, praised a “politician with a career punctuated by gray areas, but also courage, powerful intuitions and sincere patriotism”.
The only one to distance himself, the mayor of Béziers Robert Ménard believes that Jean-Marie Le Pen “made unacceptable, unbearable comments”.
For the Élysée, history will judge it
The executive reacted cautiously. Jean-Marie Le Pen, was a “historical figure of the extreme right” whose “role in the public life of our country for nearly seventy years now falls under the judgment of History”, wrote the Elysium.
For François Bayrou, Jean-Marie Le Pen “will have been a figure of French political life”, beyond “the controversies which were his favorite weapon and the necessary clashes on the merits”. “We knew, by fighting him, what a fighter he was,” added the Prime Minister.
Jean-Marie Le Pen “will undoubtedly have left his mark on his era,” noted Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, estimating that a “page in French political history is turning.”
The left, for its part, is outraged by the tributes paid to a “racist”, an “anti-Semite” and a “torturer”. “Respect for the dignity of the dead and the grief of their loved ones does not erase the right to judge their actions. Those of Jean-Marie Le Pen remain unbearable. The fight against man is over. The one against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that he spread continues,” wrote rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“Good news”
“Friends of Vichy and torture in Algeria. The FN founded with the Waffen SS, the “Durafour crematorium” and the “details of history”. A fascist from another time is gone. But leaves behind heirs, very current,” reacted MP François Ruffin.
After the death of the ex-president of the National Front, “his nauseating ideas remain. Let us fight them, tirelessly,” writes PCF spokesperson Ian Brossat.
For Philippe Poutou, “the year 2025 does not start too badly with this good news of the death of Le Pen, a racist, a colonialist, a fascist, a torturer, an assassin, a homophobe,…”
(afp)
