“Jean-Marie Le Pen, surrounded by his family, was called back to God this Tuesday”. This is how the family of the co-founder of the National Front announced his death, in a press release sent to AFP. Jean-Marie Le Pen died, at the age of 96, this Tuesday, January 7.
Political career, meetings, personal life… Jean-Marie Le Pen got up and went to bed thinking about the National Front. He wasn’t the only one. His entire family was immersed in politics. The Château de Montretout serves more as the HQ of the National Front than as a family residence.
The vice of politics has even nestled in Jean-Marie Le Pen’s relationships with his daughters. The most emblematic remains the one he has with his youngest daughter, Marine Le Pen.
During the presidential campaign, the National Front candidate recounted in An intimate ambition to be “the one sent” to disturb the patriarch. “I had a diplomatic role. I knew if it was the time to disturb him with our children’s things”, she clarified. From right hand to heiress then traitor… A look back at the conflictual relationship between the two thinking heads of the National Front.
Father’s defense
An undeniable bond existed between Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter. Beyond the family bond, Marine Le Pen resembled him, according to the co-founder of the National Front. In the book Politics in spite of itself (Editions La Tengo), dedicated to Marine Le Pen, journalists David Doucet and Mathieu Dejean say that she will “constantly be in the defense of her father”.
In 1985, Liberation reveals testimonies of torture committed by the politician during the Algerian war. After the newspaper’s revelations, Jean-Marie Le Pen would have advised his daughter not to go to high school, on the grounds that it was going to “rock dry”.
But the bond between father and daughter materializes at this moment. Marine Le Pen decides to go to high school despite everything. “With her head held high, her lips tight, she breaks through the ranks, seeming to challenge them with her gaze, ready to respond at the slightest allusion to the accusations aimed at her father (…) A family legend surrounds this episode. Jean-Marie Le Pen still tells it with emotion: ‘She was in class raising her arms! She had guts.’” the book recalls.
The “political mistake”
Little by little, the relationship between the two political figures will deteriorate. In June 2014, the co-founder of the party appeared in a video in which he mocked the committed opinions of Madonna and Patrick Bruel. “We’ll make a batch next time,” he says. It was these controversial words that pushed Marine Le Pen to denounce a “political mistake”. This is the first time that she distances herself from the comments made by her father.
In the columns of Figaro, she explains : “I am convinced that the meaning given to his words is a malicious interpretation. The fact remains that, with the very long experience that is that of Jean-Marie Le Pen, not having anticipated the interpretation that would be made of this formulation is a political fault of which the National Front suffered the consequences. If this controversy can have a positive impact, it is to allow me to recall that The National Front condemns in the strongest possible terms any form of anti-Semitism, of any nature whatsoever.“.
“Political suicide”
New controversy in April 2015. In an interview with BFMTV, then an interview with the far-right weekly RivarolJean-Marie Le Pen reaffirms that the gas chambers are “a detail” in the history of the Second World War. This will be too much declaration for his daughter, who is filing the divorce.
The co-founder of the National Front “entered a real spiral between scorched earth strategy and political suicide. His status as honorary president does not authorize him to take the National Front hostage to such crude provocations whose objective seems to be to harm me but which, unfortunately, deal a very heavy blow to the entire movement, to its executives. , to its candidates, to its members, to its voters,” writes Marine Le Pen in a press release.
Exclusion from the National Front
On August 20, 2015, the co-founder of National Front was excluded from his own party, during the political office. “In the absence of Marine Le Pen and Florian Philippot – worn pale to ‘respect the impartiality of the debates’ – it is Jean-François Jalkh who chairs the executive office”, recalls L’Obs. Jean-Marie Le Pen is therefore present and ready to fight. He prepared a press release in which he wrote: “I have (…) immunity due to my status (…) and contest the competence of the judges”.
His hearing will last approximately three hours. At the exit, the president of the FN declared: “I gave all the explanations to those who had not always clearly understood what was being said or related (…) We had varied and diverse exchanges of views The executive office decided to give itself some time.
After 8 p.m., the National Front published a press release in which it was written: “At the end of the meeting held today, the executive office of the National Front, gathered in disciplinary formation, deliberated and decided, to the required majority, the exclusion of Mr. Jean-Marie Le Pen as a member of the National Front“, announces a party press release.
The confirmation of justice
In 2018, justice confirmed the exclusion of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The latter nevertheless remains honorary president. Immediately, this decision is swept away by another: will he go to the party congress which takes place a few days later, on February 6?
“Reinforced by the validation of his honorary presidency by the courts, Jean-Marie Le Pen could well let himself be tempted. His entourage even threatens to demand the penalties due (…) ‘depending on the behavior of the FN vis-à-vis of Jean-Marie Le Pen on the occasion of the congress’ In the other camp, the secretary general, Steeve Briois, announced that the FN will block his entry”, relates. The World.
Ultimately, the deposed president will not go to Congress. On RTL, he explains that he does not want to “be complicit in the assassination of the National Front which is going to take place there”. And added: “But I ask all my friends who wanted to come to Lille to support me, not to do so. I will not go to Lille, because I do not want to be complicit in the force operation which was announced by the generation secretary Mr. Briois (…) We only disturb what exists and unfortunately it is in the process of ceasing to exist.“.
End of the FN… and beginning of the RN
After her defeat in the presidential election, Marine Le Pen believes that it is time to take a new step in the life of the National Front. According to the president and members, this involves changing the name of the party. “Tribute to the National Front, long live the National Rally,” she declared.
This change of name “closes a chapter in the history of our national movement that opened a little over 45 years ago, but it is the better to open another which, I believe, will be no less glorious.” she promises, saluting the “European people who are waking up”. An allusion to the accession to power of far-right allied parties in Europe, particularly in Italy.
Jean-Marie Le Pen considered it “disastrous that we are abandoning the name National Front, because it is an inimitable and essential landmark. Marine Le Pen apparently lacked imagination in choosing this new name, which has already been used twice, once in the cantonal elections of 1985 and once in the legislative elections of 1986”. And to continue: the FN is “a soul, a history, a past. To ignore all that seems disastrous to me”.
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