The redhead can stop running, Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead. At 96 years old, the founder of the National Front carries with him a life of controversies against a backdrop of racism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and homophobia, which have earned him many legal appointments. He was known for his punchlines and his borderline or off-limits punchlines. Here is the best of the worst from the man who was the emblematic figure of the far right in France.
The history of “detail”
The worst – and most famous – of Jean-Marie le Pen’s shocking sentences is undoubtedly the one where he described the gas chambers as a “detail of the History of the Second World War”.
Delivered for the first time in 1987 during an interview on TF1, this outing earned him a fine of 1.2 million francs for trivializing a crime against humanity. He reiterated this sentence in 1997, in Germany, in 2009 in a magazine, and in 2015 on BFMTV.
The story of the “redhead”
“I’m going to make you run, you’ll see, the redhead over there!” Eh ? Faggot! », Launched the founder of the FN on May 30, 1997 during a visit to Mantes-la-Jolie in support of his daughter, Marie-Caroline, candidate for the legislative elections in Yvelines.
Just before that, he physically attacked the mayor of Mantes-la-Ville, Annette Peulvast-Bergeal, who will be prescribed three days of ITT. For this attack, the former leader of the FN will be sentenced to three months in prison and one year of ineligibility.
The story of the “cows”
In a documentary dedicated to him by the Public Senate channel broadcast in April 2010, Jean-Marie le Pen told a VSD journalist who came to interview him at breakfast that he had “bought a country house to allow (his) children who lived in the 15th arrondissement to see cows, instead of Arabs.” Although this little racist phrase caused a lot of noise in the media at the time, it was not followed by any prosecution.
The “Durafour” story
A year after the controversy over “detail”, Jean-Marie le Pen plunged again during a speech at the FN summer school in 1988. This time, he attacked the Minister of the Civil Service of the time, Michel Durafour. “Mr. Durafour crematorium, thank you for this confession,” he said in front of an applauding audience.
His more than dubious play on words earned Jean-Marie le Pen a fine of 100,000 francs on appeal in 1993.
The history of “racial inequality”
It was again during an FN summer school that the former far-right leader let himself go. It was 1996, in La Grande-Motte, when Jean-Marie le Pen told his audience: “Yes, I believe in racial inequality, yes, of course, it’s obvious,” he said. To justify himself, he adds that “all of History demonstrates that they do not have the same capacity, nor the same level of evolution”.
In 2015, on France Info, he was surprised that he had been criticized for this sentence: “yes, I said that black people run faster than white people and swim much slower […] There is a little difference, right? What is scandalous about recognizing this? “.
The story of “Birds”
In 2012, during the FN’s back-to-school conference, Jean-Marie le Pen changed targets. This time, he attacked the “Eastern European Roma” who, according to him, “never wanted to integrate into European societies”. With a smile on his lips, he said that the Roma “are like birds, they fly naturally”.
The story of “salt in the soup”
In 2016, the founder of the FN participated in a Facebook live from Le Figaro when one of the journalists relayed a question to him from a listener who wondered why the FN was so focused on homosexuals. “Homosexuals are like salt in soup. If there’s none at all, it’s a bit bland, but if there’s too much, it’s undrinkable,” he replied with a laugh.
For this sentence – and for another drawing the parallel between pedophilia and homosexuality – he was tried and sentenced, in 2018, to a fine of 800 euros. On appeal, in 2019, his conviction was revised upwards with two sentences of thirty days fine of 40 euros, except for the “salt in the soup” story, for which he was acquitted.
The story of “and your sister”
Died on February 17, 2007, Maurice Papon, a former Vichy official convicted of the deportation of Jews during the Second World War, was to be buried four days later. The day before, a journalist asked Jean-Marie le Pen: “Will you go to the funeral of Maurice Papon tomorrow?” “. Furious, the ex-president of the FN retorted: “And is your sister going there? “.
Read our file on Jean-Marie Le Pen
And when the journalist reiterates his question, Jean-Marie le Pen continues: “Maurice Papon was a senior Gaullist official, I remind you, and I was not from this parish”.
