The co-founder of the National Front, who died this Tuesday, January 7, found himself, to everyone’s surprise, qualified for the second round of the 2002 presidential election. Confronted with Jacques Chirac after the elimination of Lionel Jospin, Jean-Marie Le Pen then had had to face a historic mobilization against him. This moment also marked the political awakening of an entire generation.
France 2, 8 p.m., April 21, 2002, the evening of the first round of the presidential election. It is with a defeated face that journalist David Pujadas gives the results. “Jacques Chirac is qualified for the second round and huge surprise, Jean-Marie Le Pen seems to be the second,” he comments.
Astonishment in the political world as in France: Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister, and who had already had all the leaflets printed for between the two rounds, came in third place with 16.12% of the votes. In his place, we therefore find Jean-Marie Le Pen (16.95%) facing Jacques Chirac (19.71%).
A qualification that no one saw coming
On the side of the co-founder of the National Front, it is initially disbelief that dominates. If the man nicknamed the Menhir had indeed addressed the hypothesis of a presence in the second round in 1995, seven years later, the horizon has darkened.
His movement emerged exhausted from a fratricidal war against Bruno Mégret, number 2 of the RN, who ended up slamming the door in 1999 and launching his own movement. And then Jean-Marie Le Pen hardly renewed his campaign themes. Same themes, same results? As in 1995 when he came in 4th position, he is holding more meetings against immigration and insecurity.
The result of the last legislative elections, five years earlier, does not give much hope either. These surprise elections, after the dissolution of Jacques Chirac, even turned into a fiasco: the FN failed to elect a single deputy. With a scene that makes even those closest to Jean-Marie Le Pen cough: his attack in 1997 against a socialist elected official from Yvelines during a trip to support his daughter Marie-Caroline, a candidate in the territory.
Two years later, for the European elections, the FN only came in eighth position. Suffice to say that accession to the second round in 2002 seems very unlikely.
With the exception of Bernadette Chirac who whispered in her husband’s ear that she had met French people who told her they felt closer and closer to Lepenist ideas, few people had considered the hypothesis, even if only a few seconds, of a match between Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Jean-Marie Le Pen “does not want to be in the second round”
And too bad if the candidacy of Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister, never really takes off, between a declaration of entry into the campaign by fax, a program which struggles to inspire and a feeling of insecurity which explodes and to which he struggles to respond . Barely three days before the second round, the violent attack on a retiree nicknamed Papy Voise in Orléans made the rounds in the media.
From his campaign HQ in Saint-Cloud on the evening of April 21, Jean-Marie Le Pen is therefore, logically, stunned. Not once did the co-founder of the FN imagine himself at the Élysée. His costume as a slayer of the “political and media system”, fueled by numerous controversies and legal convictions, suits him very well.
A few days before the first round, the septuagenarian even told journalist Olivier Mazerolles “that he did not want to be in the second round”.
During his speech to activists after the announcement of his qualification, the former MP appeared deeply uncomfortable. While evoking “the unexpected gift” that the French gave him, he refused to let his troops let their joy explode, even asking them not to applaud his speech broadcast on television.
And too bad if those closest to him exult. “It’s crazy,” confides his wife Jany Le Pen on France 2 the same evening. “With childbirth, it must be the happiest day of our lives I think. It’s pretty much the same, it’s the birth of something,” adds Marine Le Pen.
“A flawless Republican front” against Jean-Marie Le Pen
To put his heart into the work for the next two weeks of the campaign which is opening, Jean-Marie Le Pen calls on “the little ones”, “the ones without ranks”, “the excluded ones not to let themselves be manipulated by the old tricks of politicians who want to keep their little shop”.
On the side of the losers of the first round, however, there was little hesitation, a few minutes after the announcement of the results. From Olivier Besancenot to Christine Boutin via François Bayrou, the instructions are clear: block Jean-Marie Le Pen in the “name of the Republican front”.
If the political world very quickly understands that the outgoing president will be largely re-elected, a shock wave runs through the country. “This thunderbolt” as Lionel Jospin calls it, who, without hesitation, withdrew from political life the very evening of the first round, pushed thousands of people to converge on the Place de la République in Paris spontaneously.
The next day, it was the front page of Libération which served as banners in numerous improvised processions: the face of Jean-Marie Le Pen crossed out with a simple “no” in capital letters.
More than a million French people in the streets
More than the calls to defeat the National Front of his political adversaries, it is the enormous mobilization of youth which strikes Jean-Marie Le Pen. However, young people largely abstained in the first round. According to an Ipsos poll, 37% of 18-24 year olds did not vote in the first round compared to 25% in 1995.
The anger in the streets increases as the days go by with tens of thousands of faces, often high school or university students, pounding the streets to the sounds of “F for Facho, N for Nazi”, “youth piss off the National Front” or even “we are all children of immigrants”.
May 1, which is traditionally a day of union procession, turns into a huge anti-FN rally. More than 1.3 million people marched that day, a historic figure.
The movement also marks the political awakening of an entire generation. Gabriel Attal, for example, told Figaro Magazine having marched in the street with his parents when he was 13.
Jacques Chirac also takes advantage of the atmosphere to strengthen himself politically. Reviled by the left in recent decades, his decision not to debate against Jean-Marie Le Pen between the two rounds, a first since 1974, is appreciated by socialist sympathizers. A decision that the president explains by his refusal of “the trivialization of intolerance and hatred”.
The following May 5, Jacques Chirac won by a wide margin in the second round with 82.21%. Jean-Marie Le Pen fails to transform the essay a few weeks later. While the right fears very complicated legislative elections, with multiple triangular elections which would allow the FN to win in many constituencies, the right manages to elect 398 deputies, or 260 more than under the previous mandate. The FN does not elect any candidate.
In 2007, Jean-Marie Le Pen only received 10% of the votes before definitively handing over to Marine Le Pen in 2012.
