“Jean-Marie Le Pen, surrounded by his family, was called back to God this Tuesday at 12 p.m.,” his family said in a statement 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.
Weakened by several health accidents, a medical expert report noted last June “a profound deterioration” in his physical and psychological state, estimating that he was neither able to “be present” nor to “prepare his defense” at the trial of the assistants of the FN MEPs which took place in Paris from September to November.
In mid-November, Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized and then admitted to a structure in Garches, west of Paris, not far from his home in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine).
“The menhir”
An outstanding tribune, a sulphurous provocateur obsessed with immigration and Jews, a patriarch upset by his own people, this Breton who liked to be nicknamed “the menhir”, had brought the French extreme right out of its marginality during a political career. which marked the Fifth Republic.
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.
“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 X l current boss of RN Jordan Bardella.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, after being married to the mother of his daughters Marie-Caroline, Yann and Marine, Pierrette Lalanne, married Jany Le Pen for the second time.
