Jean-Marie Le Pen, figure of the French extreme right and finalist in the 2002 presidential election, died Tuesday at the age of 96 in the Paris region, in an establishment where he had been admitted several weeks ago.
“Jean-Marie Le Pen, surrounded by his family, was called back to God this Tuesday at 12 p.m.,” his family announced in a press release sent to AFP.
The founder of the National Front, which became the National Rally, gradually withdrew from political life from 2011, when his daughter Marine Le Pen took over the presidency of the party.
An outstanding tribune, a sulphurous provocateur obsessed with immigration and Jews, a patriarch upset by his own people, Jean-Marie Le Pen brought the French far right out of its marginality.
The most emblematic of his successes will remain unfinished. On April 21, 2002, at the age of 73 and for his fourth candidacy for the Élysée, he created a surprise by qualifying for the second round of the election.
The triumph has its downside: for two weeks, millions of people march against racism and its political incarnation. Above all, Jean-Marie Le Pen allows the easy re-election of his sworn enemy Jacques Chirac.
The “Menhir” has never expressed any regret for its slippages, controlled or not, often repeated, which have earned it several legal convictions: from the gas chambers “point of detail of history”, to “inequality of races” (1996), through the “not particularly inhumane” German Occupation (2005) or the physical aggression of a socialist adversary (1997).
“Engaged under the uniform of the French army in Indochina and Algeria, tribune of the people in the National Assembly and the European Parliament, he has always served France, defended its identity and its sovereignty”, greeted on president of the National Rally (RN) party, heir to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front (FN).
