A giant aperitif at Place de la République in Paris, inflammatory comments and dances on TikTok: many French people are celebrating the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the National Front, at the age of 96.
• Also read: Jean-Marie Le Pen dies at the age of 96
«Yeaha funeral, we’re coming! Go ahead DJ, blast the sound (rest in peace)»: we hear these words from the cult song This morning is going to be a pure eveningby humorous rapper Fatal Bazooka, in several videos posted on social networks on Tuesday.
“An angel gone too late,” we read in the comments under one of these videos.
• Also read: Jean-Marie Le Pen, sulphurous builder of the modern French far right
“Let us finally rest in peace,” wrote another user.
The French media Konbini, for its part, used the song Akon’s Beautiful Day in its publication announcing the death of the far-right statesman.
Images broadcast in several French media show hundreds of people celebrating the death of Marine Le Pen’s father on Place de la République in Paris.
Similar celebrations take place in Lyon.
But what explains these reactions?
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has often been described as racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-immigration, brought the French far right out of its marginality.
On April 21, 2002, at the age of 73, he created a surprise by qualifying for the second round of the presidential election, in which he ultimately lost to his sworn enemy, Jacques Chirac.
• Also read: The main condemnations and provocations of Jean-Marie Le Pen
After his appointment, millions of French people marched against him.
During his life, Jean-Marie Le Pen was condemned in court, notably when he called the Nazi gas chambers “a point of detail in history” or said that the German occupation was “not particularly inhuman” (2005) or when he physically attacked a socialist opponent (1997).
@lemondefr Jean-Marie Le Pen died on January 7, 2025 at the age of 96. The founder of the National Front marked French political history through numerous polemical declarations: from the gas chambers described as a “detail of history” to his absolute belief in “racial inequality”, including insults made against his political opponents.
♬ original sound – Le Monde
Reactions that shock
The reactions of joy provoked by the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen are denounced by commentators and citizens.
«[Ces images] disturb me as the excesses of Jean-Marie Le Pen himself disturbed me. He aroused this kind of hatred which comes from the French left. Hatred that we can understand, but which when we try to understand the character has no reason to exist,” historian Jean Garrigues declared on BFMTV.
