After her withdrawal from political life, the figure of the French extreme right, who died on Tuesday at the age of 96, had on numerous occasions expressed her strategic disagreements with Marine Le Pen.
“Marine Le Pen is elected president of the National Front!”proclaims Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose family announced his death on Tuesday January 7 at the age of 96. This January 15, 2011, in Tours (Indre-et-Loire), the founder of the FN is proud to entrust his life’s work to his youngest daughter. The “Menhir” did not seek a new mandate at the head of the party which he co-founded in 1972 and of which he was the only president since its creation. The embraces are warm and sound like a passing of the baton at the top of the French far right, nine years after its accession to the second round of the presidential election at the expense of Lionel Jospin.
So does he want to leave the political scene for good or does he have an idea in mind to keep control through his daughter? Since the start of his rise, the Morbihannais has often put his family forward. For his first major television show, in 1984, he placed his three children in the front row. In 1986, Marine Le Pen joined the National Front and ran in her first elections six years later. When she represented her father on television sets in 2002, the young lawyer bluffed him by ironically provoking his adversaries on the left and right. The succession is underway for Jean-Marie Le Pen, who fails against Jacques Chirac at the age of 74.
The following years, however, will not resemble a long, quiet river between the two. In 2008, Marine Le Pen publicly disapproved of her father’s denialist remarks about the gas chambers, which according to him would have represented “a detail of history”. “I say what I have always said: ‘I do not share the same vision of these events as my father’”she explains on BFMTV. However, she will deny having distanced herself from this father who does not hesitate to multiply excesses.
Marine Le Pen and her entourage then began to theorize the strategy of demonization, with a view to the presidential election of 2012, after the failure of 2007. In 2011, she created the position of honorary president for her father and modified the political line of the far-right party. Immigration remains an important theme, but it is the fight against the euro and Europe which becomes central. And Jean-Marie Le Pen does not hesitate to criticize this change of direction.
“It would be a shame if the National Front tried to resemble other parties in order to demonize itself.”
-Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the FNon France 2 in June 2014
At the traditional May 1st gathering in 2015, he celebrated Joan of Arc for his part in Paris. He then goes on stage, uninvited, when his daughter is due to speak. Marine Le Pen decides to exclude her father. They will then face each other in court for three years. “This is not meant to surprise us. We know that in the National Front, there is no recognition of the stomach”he laments as he tries to enter the party premises in June 2017.
A few months later, Jean-Marie Le Pen made an attempt at appeasement and asked for a meeting with his daughter. “It’s not an outstretched hand, it’s a way for Jean-Marie Le Pen, once again, to exist. I will not engage in these provocations”sweeps away her daughter in February 2018. “I extended my hand. If we don’t take it, too bad, but I will regret it”breathes the nonagenarian.
At the following congress, where her father was not invited, Marine Le Pen asserted her definitive control over the party. The National Front officially became the National Rally in June 2018 after the approval of 80% of party members, who did not abandon their characteristic flame. This change of name marks the end of the confrontation between Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Relations will calm down little by little, over time. In the following presidential election, the patriarch chose his side, not without some qualms. “I had asked that we vote for Marine and although I had esteem for a certain number of other candidates and in particular Eric Zemmour”he explains in 2022. That year, Marine Le Pen collected more than 13.29 million votes in the second round, almost two and a half times the score of her father twenty years earlier.
