Jean-Marie Le Pen’s health is precarious and required hospitalization at the beginning of November. As rumors of his imminent death circulated in recent days, his family reacted.
Marine Le Pen, interviewed this Wednesday, November 20 on RTL, spoke of her father’s hospitalization and his medical care which has lasted since the beginning of November. The daughter of the man nicknamed “the Menhir” in his political career did not deny the latest news which was not very reassuring about his state of form. “We have, because we love him, concerns about his health,” Marine Le Pen said soberly on the radio, adding: “It affects the privacy of his private life and ours too.” She had also confided to a few journalists, on the sidelines of her last hearing at the Paris court, that she was concerned about the hospitalization of her father, whose latest analyzes turned out to be bad.
Alarming rumors about the state of health of the former president of the National Front emerged last Sunday, and pushed some journalists to check with his family, while Jean-Marie Le Pen has been hospitalized since the beginning of November. “Jean-Marie Le Pen is stable and doing well according to those around him. He is being monitored and hospitalized for safety. The rumors circulating are of abject indignity for his family and loved ones, especially at this moment. This is not journalism but crass voyeurism,” wrote a journalist from the far-right news site Frontières Média, clearly well informed. Rumors giving certain specific elements circulated on social networks at the beginning of the week.
The Sirènes site account, presenting itself as an information site, and followed by more than 60,000 people on last rites following his hospitalization. During the night, this same account added: “We confirm the reliability of our sources. However, in order to put an end to malicious rumors, we specify that the condition of Jean-Marie Le Pen is stable and not alarming according to those close to him.” Other rumors reported Jean-Marie Le Pen’s desire to leave the hospital to go to his home, in order to die peacefully at home. All these allegations, remember, are completely unfounded rumors.
“A general state of weakness”
What we know is that Jean-Marie Le Pen is very weakened. On Wednesday, November 13, those close to Menhir told the France Presse agency that he had been taken into hospital care at the beginning of November. Marine Le Pen’s father has been under close surveillance for ten days, he remains resting in a hospital center “with no release date”, indicated Paris Match. “This hospitalization was planned, insisted those around him, but was accelerated “because of signs” of weakness, added the same source.
Le Point was abundant and gave the same information. “Following a general state of weakness, Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized at the request of his general practitioner to carry out analyzes ‘for safety reasons'”, wrote a journalist from the weekly.
We have known for several weeks that the state of health of Jean-Marie Le Pen is worrying. He does not allow him to attend the trial of the National Front, accused of embezzlement of funds from the European Parliament, which began on November 13. Doctors in fact indicated in a report to the courts, a few weeks ago, that the former president of the far-right party now had “no awareness of the aim, meaning and scope of this audience”, not being able to “concentrate for more than a few minutes”.
The main accused in this major trial of parliamentary assistants, suspected of fictitious jobs, is therefore the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen, who did not hide in previous hearings that she thought she would not escape a conviction. The former presidential candidate has always defended the same line in this trial: the parliamentary assistants of the far-right party in the European Parliament working had every right to carry out activities for the political party, to defend the interests of their political training, both in France and in the European Union.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, an elderly man in fragile health
Jean-Marie Le Pen will not be condemned. On July 3, the Paris judicial court ruled in his favor and considered that his state of health could exempt him from an appearance in the fall. “Mr. Le Pen can no longer move around and his faculties are considerably impaired,” defended his lawyer during a hearing in March, to plead his case before this decision. Jean-Marie Le Pen was also placed under the legal protection regime, the equivalent of guardianship, at the request of his children.
Last April 2023, the founder of the National Front (which became the National Rally in 2018) was hospitalized in the Paris region due to “cardiac” illness. Since then, his state of health has been worrying. Near the Parisiana friend of the former presidential candidate spoke of “big problems with immediate memory”. “He no longer knows who he saw the day before. He is very tired,” he said.
The former president of the National Front has been hospitalized several times in recent years. He was notably taken to hospital in February 2022 after a mild form of stroke: a transient ischemic attack. However, his state of health was considered good at the time, given his significant illness. The stroke was then very quickly identified. He was hospitalized as a precaution after losing his vision for a minute.
In June 2018, a “dangerous pulmonary complication” led him to be hospitalized for around ten days. In April of the same year, a persistent fever caused him to be hospitalized.
