The “last of the giants”, a “courageous man”, “a figure of French political life”: the far right and the right come to the aid of Jean-Marie le Pen

With the death of Jean-Marie le Pen, leader for forty years of the National Front (FN), author of abuses during the colonial war in Algeria, he is a representative of what the extreme right – and a number of representatives of the right – has conveyed worse (racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, etc.) in the French political and societal fields. While his legacy continues to poison French society and public debate, many representatives of his political camp try to minimize his wrongs or even establish him as a “hero”.

Tributes to the founder of the FN – now National Rally (RN) – have thus multiplied from the right and the extreme right. The one who made anti-communism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia and anti-Semitism his leitmotifs has “always served France, defended its identity and its sovereignty”, affirms Jordan Bardella, ideological heir and president of the RN, on his account

Obsessed with the supposed existence of a great replacement

“I think today with sadness of his family, of his loved ones, and of course of Marine whose mourning must be respected,” he added, while Marine le Pen has not yet spoken on the death of his father. The same goes for the former vice-president of the National Front and MEP, Florian Philippot, who expresses his “emotion at the disappearance of a figure in French political life”.

Same story for the founder of Reconquête!, a repeat offender convicted on several occasions, notably for “racist insult”, Éric Zemmour: “Beyond the controversies, beyond the scandals, what we will remember about him in the decades, is that he was among the first to alert France of the existential threats that awaited it. » The one who took over many of Jean-Marie le Pen’s obsessions and who is obsessed by the supposed existence of a great replacement of the French population then praises the “vision of a man, and his courage, to a time when courageous men were not so numerous.

His former spokesperson, who has his napkin ring in the far-right media, from the magazine Valeurs nationaux to CNews, Jean Messiha, dares, for his part, to portray the politician who minimized the misdeeds of the Nazi regime or , even, the existence of gas chambers, like “one of the most lucid personalities of the Fifth Republic”but also like “the first to alert us to the dangers of the migratory invasion and the Islamization of France”.

The claimed anti-Semitism of Jean-Marie le Pen, in fact, does not seem to be a concern – apart from a strategic one – for the far-right polemicist: “He was wrong twice. The first is being right too soon. The second is to have, through his anti-Semitic outbursts, wasted 30 years on the national camp. »

Proof of the extreme right-wing of the political and media fields, a number of personalities on the right, or even in the center, of the political spectrum have had no compunction in praising the legacy of Jean-Marie le Pen. Like the Prime Minister and president of the MoDem, François Bayrou, who explains that, beyond the “clashes”, the founder of the FN “will have been a figure in French political life”. The same goes for the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, for whom “a page in French political history is turning”. The latter even believes that, “whatever opinion one may have of Jean-Marie Le Pen, he will undoubtedly have left his mark on his era”.

The media are not left out. The identity magazine Borders (ex-black book) pays “tribute to the last of the giants”, while le Figaro pays tribute to a personality who “will have opened the eyes of the French to the evils that demography can bring, which forbids, by his excesses, any moderate soul from associating himself with his primary fight against immigration”. Jean-Marie le Pen can leave in peace, his guard dogs seem ready to continue his business of destruction.