Jean-Marie Le Pen died at the age of 96 on Tuesday January 7, his family announced to AFP.
1:50 p.m. – Marine Le Pen informed of the death of her father by the press
Marine Le Pen would have learned of the death of her father on the plane bringing her back from her stay in Mayotte according to information from Parisian. The politician would have been informed of the news for the journalists who accompanied her who were themselves informed by the AFP. The leader of the RN would have isolated herself to make several calls.
13:49 – Placed “under legal protection”, a form of guardianship
Last April, Louis Aliot, vice-president of National gathering and former companion of Marine Le Pen, revealed, according to RMC, that the former president of the FN had been placed “under legal protection”. Information confirmed by his lawyer François Wagner, who assured AFP that Jean-Marie Le Pen had been the subject of a future protection warrant in mid-February.
1:46 p.m. – The RN’s tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen
The RN party published a press release in which it salutes the memory, the journey and the struggles of Jean-Marie Le Pen to pay tribute to the founder of the party which has since changed its name under the leadership of his daughter. “With him a page turns in French political history and, given the continental impetus he gave to the fight for the Nations, in European political history,” writes the party. “With him passes away one of the last deputies of the Fourth Republic, a fighter from Indochina and Algeria who defended, with all his soul and at the risk of his life, the idea of French greatness. A parliamentarian certainly indocile and sometimes turbulent but always respectful of republican institutions”, we can also read. The RN adds that Jean-Marie Le Pen “has proven to be a visionary, imposing in the public debate the major subjects which structure political life today such as demography and its corollary immigration, globalization and the downgrading of France, national sovereignty and the risk of dilution in the European Union.”
1:44 p.m. – The RN salutes the “will and tenacity” of Jean-Marie Le Pen
“During six decades of active political combat, he proved to be a visionary, imposing in the public debate the major subjects which structure political life today such as demography and its corollary immigration, globalization and downgrading of France, national sovereignty and the risk of dilution in the European Union For the National Rally, it will remain the one who, in the storms, held in its hands the little flickering flame of the French Nation and who, through will. and limitless tenacity, made the national movement an autonomous, powerful and free political family.
For the French, the one whom people in the street readily called Jean-Marie, will embody the courageous and talented politician, who was keen, throughout his life, to serve his Fatherland without failing and to be, without fail, releases, the powerful and warm voice of the “voiceless”. Some will also see in him, this stature carved in granite, a “Menhir”, who sometimes liked to be polemical. For the generations attached to the country, today and tomorrow, he will be remembered as an intrepid and indomitable fighter in the service of a proud and conquering vision of France”, we can also read in the press release of the National gathering, after the announcement of the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
1:42 p.m. – Marine Le Pen in Mayotte at the time of her father’s death
If Jean-Marie Le Pen died “surrounded by his family” according to the family press release, one of his daughters was missing at his bedside since Marine Le Pen is currently in Mayotte, the archipelago devastated by cyclone Chido in December, for a trip which must end this Tuesday, January 7.
1:41 p.m. – The National Rally pays tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen
In a press release, the National Rally paid tribute to the co-founder of the National Front: “Jean Marie Le Pen has left us. With him a page in French political history turns and, given the continental impulse that he gave to the fight for the Nations, of European political history Deprived of a father by the War, he remained all his life a child of the people, these people of the land and sea of his native Brittany, this. forgotten and sometimes despised French people, including he was, with recognized eloquence and immense culture, the tribune.
With him dies one of the last deputies of the Fourth Republic, a fighter from Indochina and Algeria who defended, with all his soul and at the risk of his life, the idea of French greatness. A parliamentarian who is certainly indocile and sometimes turbulent but always respectful of republican institutions. Founder of the National Front in 1972, he had raised, in adversity and opprobrium, this small patriotic party without means or future, to the rank of political groups that count and, it is indisputable, left no one indifferent. His audience with the French led him to the second round of the presidential election,” we can read.
13:40 – Eric Zemmour’s reaction to the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen
The politician and polemicist Eric Zemmour also reacted to the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen. “Beyond the controversies, beyond the scandals, what we will remember about him in the coming decades is that he was among the first to alert France of the existential threats that awaited it,” he said. he writes about X. And adds: “It will remain the vision of a man, and his courage, at a time when courageous men were not so numerous.”
13:39 – A final controversial appearance
The last appearance of Jean-Marie Le Pen, known as “the Menhir”, corresponds to a video in which we see him singing with musicians from a neo-Nazi rock group. “Jean-Marie Le Pen is capable of reciting Musset, but may not know what year it is,” his daughter told BFMTV.
13:36 – Jordan Bardella’s tribute to the founder of his party
Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, is one of the first to react to the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The protégé of Marine Le Pen salutes the man who “engaged in 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” on X.
13:34 – 2016, excluded from his own party
For his last turn during a presidential election, in 2007, Jean-Marie Le Pen collected 10% of the votes, far from the score achieved by the FN five years earlier. In 2011, he left the presidency of the party, and gave way to his daughter, Marine Le Pen. The following years were tumultuous between the two tenors of the party in the flame, and the now number 2 Florian Philippot, before the co-founder of the FN was simply excluded from the party in 2016. A first “death” for Jean-Marie Le Pen.
1:30 p.m. – 2002, the high point of his career
To everyone’s surprise, and after the departure of FN executive Bruno Mégret a few years earlier, the party reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election by collecting 16.9% of the votes. Despite a very large defeat against Jacques Chirac, this marks a real turning point in the French political landscape, and an undeniable breakthrough for the far right in the country. “I envisaged with a certain anxiety that there would be a populist surge. I am not particularly a politician who has the reputation of being fearful but I know how to assess the danger. When you find yourself in the hypothesis of Being President of the Republic when you don’t have the means to do so, don’t you think that can legitimately arouse a feeling of anxiety? If that’s not the case, it’s because you are? a wanker”, he declared in the columns of Society, several years after this coup for the National Front.
1:25 p.m. – His biggest slip-up on the gas chambers
Asked on RTL about the gas chambers in 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen declared that it was a “detail in the history of the Second World War”. A statement which constitutes, perhaps, the biggest slip-up of his long political career. Provocations that will become his trademark. The ex-president of the FN has been convicted on several occasions for public insults, incitement to hatred and even violence. A year later, he received 14.4% of the vote in the 1988 presidential election.
13:21 – “We tortured because it had to be done”, his participation in the Algerian war
After a stint with the first foreign parachute battalion in Indochina, Jean-Marie Le Pen enters politics in the context of the elections legislative elections of 1956 under the banner of the French Union and Fraternity. At the age of 27, he became one of the youngest deputies in the French Parliament. During his mandate, he participated in the Algerian War. Suspicions weigh precisely on his participation in the torture of FLN activists. “We tortured because it had to be done. When we bring you someone who has just planted twenty bombs that could explode at any moment and he doesn’t want to talk, you have to use means exceptional measures to force it to do so,” he explained in 1962.
1:17 p.m. – Jean-Marie Le Pen died “surrounded by his family”
“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.
13:16 – Hospitalized several times in recent years
In recent years, Jean-Marie Le Pen has been hospitalized several times. Very recently, in 2022, after a mild form of stroke, he was taken to hospital, but his state of health was subsequently judged to be quite good. He lost his vision for about a minute but the stroke was quickly identified.
