Tuesday January 7, 2025, at 12 p.m., Jean-Marie LE PEN bowed out.
The old soldier has gone to join the stars. A twinkling star is a sign of life; a fading star is a sign of the end of a destiny, the end of one period and the beginning of another. But old soldiers never die, they just disappear and JMLP will never die as long as his memory is present in our hearts.
The reverence of the old soldier
“The true greatness of a man is not measured by times when he is at ease, but when he goes through a period of controversy and challenge” (Martin Luther King).
During his lifetime, Jean-Marie Le Pen was the politician who caused the most controversy. What has not been said and written over these 70 years about this extraordinary charismatic character? Patriotic for some, racist and anti-Semitic for others, JMLP will have experienced as many honors as disappointments, admiration as rejections…
Born June 20, 1928, he was 11 years old in 1939, when the war broke out. In November 1944, at the age of 16, he asked Colonel Henri de La Vaissière (alias Answer) to join the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), but he refuses in these terms: “ From now on, orders are given to ensure that our volunteers are over 18 years old. You are a ward of the nation: think of your mother! ».
In 1954 he enlisted for Indochina within a prestigious legion unit:
The 1is Bataillon ANDthey need Parachutistes where he served as a second lieutenant. On January 2, 1956, at the age of 27, he was elected deputy in the 1era constituency of the Seine. In September 1956, faithful to his convictions “ French Algeria “, he will swap his deputy costume for an outfit “ leopard » and will join, in Algeria, his former unit – reconstituted under the name of 1is Rregiment ANDthey need Parachutistes (1) – flagship of the French army where he will evolve as an intelligence officer with the rank of lieutenant.
With his unit he participated, on November 5, 1956, in the landing at Port-Fouad (east of the Suez Canal) then, from January to October 1957, in the ” battle of Algiers » with the aim of eradicating the terrorism which was bloodying the city. General Massu will decorate him with the Cross of Military Valor. Deeply marked by these conflicts, he espoused the Israeli cause while de Gaulle, his political opponent, condemned the opening of hostilities by Israel during the Six Day War. In his press conference of November 27, 1967, de Gaulle went so far as to call Israel ” self-confident and dominant people, thus provoking a real outcry in France and abroad.
From this commitment, JMLP will always maintain Jewish friendships and will publish (well before the creation of the FN) a Zionist propaganda disc which Golda Meir will say had contributed to “ strengthen ties between France and Israel ».
Among his closest associates were a friend of Ariel Sharon and a former member of theIrgoun.
In 1986, while the French media and the “ right-thinking » undertook their work of “ demonization » in his place, the weekly Jewish Tribune awarded him a certificate of non-anti-Semitism. In 1987, he was received in New York by representatives of American Zionist organizations who rose to applaud him, including Netanyahu. At that time, he was preparing a meeting in Israel with Ariel Sharon. And while JMLP demonstrated its solidarity with the Jewish people, the evil spirits were active in the shadows, constantly trying – with demagogic sentences and fallacious accusations of anti-Semitism – to annihilate its action.
To free himself from this, JMLP – now president of the National Front – created on October 1, 1986 a National Committee of French Jews (CNFJ), an association bringing together doctors, intellectuals and various personalities, led by a retired oceanographer living in Monaco, Jean-Charles Bloch , with the help of Doctor Wolf and Robert Hemmerdinger. The latter, a former resistance fighter then assigned to the search for Nazi war criminals, also participated in the war in Indochina and then in Algeria and fought in the ranks of the OAS for the protection of French Algeria. He was Commander of the Legion of Honor.
Jewish and patriotic Frenchman, having lost several members of his family during deportation, JC Bloch declared: « It is an imposture to want to confuse anyone concerned by the problem of North African immigration with a racist, and therefore an anti-Semite. I cannot establish a connection between the deliberate and systematic massacre by the Nazis of Jewish populations of occupied Europe, and the refusal of JM Le Pen to see a prolific and difficult to assimilate North African tide settle in France today, which will in the short term upset all the balances of the nation. » And Mr. Bloch to thank Jean Marie Le Pen for being “the only French political party leader to demand the closure of the PLO office ».
It was the very opposite of “ left-wing censors » in total contradiction with themselves, when they denounced on the one hand the slightest suspicion of anti-Semitism and on the other gave in without complex to “their immoderate and constantly affirmed taste for the Palestinian cause ».
Forty years later, nothing has changed on this point and this declaration by JC Bloch still remains relevant…
Then came September 13, 1987 and the thunderclap… The political tsunami of JMLP!
Au « Grand Jury RTL-Le Monde “, he declared point blank about the gas chambers used by the Nazis: « I haven’t studied the question specifically, but I believe it is a detail in the history of the Second World War. ».
At this moment, the “ censors » lurking in the shadows who were calling for their “ phrase or word assassin » let their joy explode. The bomb had just exploded under JMLP’s feet!
Lorrain de Saint Affrique, JMLP communications advisor, will say that he will regret his comments in private immediately after the interview. Only the damage was done and will immediately lead, in unprecedented violence, to the disapproval of almost the entire political-media class, making this famous outburst of Fouquier-Tinville : “Give me a sentence from anyone, and I’ll have them hanged!” “.
It is from this disastrous day and this hated word that JMLP will be lynched in the media and isolated in perpetuity in the “ death row ” of ” politically correct » which Beaumarchais stigmatized in these terms: “ Reputations are made by scoundrels and exploited by fools ».
Stunned, stunned by the scale of the outrageous cries that flooded the airwaves and daily newspapers and by the hatred that emanated from them, the “ Menhirs » decided to raise his head and reply. Then began a merciless, bitter, fierce fight, without the slightest concession against “ l’establishment “. Since war is declared on him, he will take up the gauntlet! No more good intentions! It will become, for the occasion, “ sauvage », « polemicist », « provocateur » against those who seek to kill him and against these same Jewish associations which, neglecting the danger that Islamist terrorism represented for them (2)now made JMLP their “ enemy number 1 “. This wound will never heal!
Shut up, hunker down, make amends? Never ! Turn the other cheek in contrition? For anyone other than him, this would have been possible: not for JMLP! His pride helping him, he cannot bear to be flouted, humiliated, despised, hurt. Accepting the offense without defending himself in the name of a past love is beyond what he is capable of. The Breton is pugnacious, tough, brawling… snarky when pushed to its limits. He is a former paratrooper legionnaire, warrior at heart; then, he will return blow for blow!
This is how, to the great delight of journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, drooling and pawing impatiently while waiting for the juicy little scandalous phrase that would propel him to the skies of media glory, JMLP reiterated, on the 2nd April 2015, his word assassin which provoked a new outcry and a summons by the prosecution…
« Human stupidity » professed Montaigne « is the source of the worst disasters… but also an inexhaustible gold mine for those who know how to exploit it ».
We have always asked ourselves the question of whether this sentence – pronounced “ too easily » – expressed real hostility, or if it was said mainly to attract attention. The answer is probably found in this confidence from JMLP to the Jewish journalist, Serge Moati: “ A nice National Front would interest no one »… hence the harshness of his repartee.
On January 31, 1995, during the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, he will pay his respects in these places steeped in history and, recognizing the reality of the genocide of the Jews and the horrors of the extermination camps, will express his regrets for hurting the Jewish people in his previous statement.
But in all this abomination, among all those which shook the planet during the last conflict, the question of “ detail » on the use of gas chambers will remain forever in the eyes of moralists – whom Philippe Bouvard stigmatized in « A thousand and one thoughts » : « The characteristic of the moralist is to consider as immoral the filth that he has always dreamed of doing.– the word assassin in which the devil was hidden… and it was Lucifer himself who took pleasure in bringing his demonic note to the excess of malicious reactions.
On June 30, 2019, at the age of 90, JMLP said goodbye to the European Parliament where he had served for 35 years.
In a warning, he urged the deputies to react to the « giant migratory phenomenon represented by demographic growth which threatens to overwhelm the boreal continent of which Europe is a part (sic) ».
And to vent the complaint of his tortured soul by castigating his peers in a final Credo : « Deputies, who have remained blind, deaf and mute, posterity will curse you! ».
In a press briefing, a few minutes before his speech, he declared that he saw in the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris “ a sign of the threats weighing on France » (3).
José CASTANO.
“This speech you have just heard is my death will. I saw it today, the league of villains is so strong that I cannot hope to escape from it. I succumb without regret. I leave you my memory, it will be dear to you and you will defend it” (Maximilien Robespierre).
(1) The 1is REP was dissolved by de Gaulle following the putsch of April 1961 and its executives (including Commander Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc) were incarcerated.
(2) A year earlier, on September 17, 1986, Hezbollah committed a series of bomb attacks in France: 10 attacks resulted in the death of 14 people and injured 300 others, notably on rue de Rennes in Paris, in front of the store Tatileaving 7 dead and 55 injured.
(3) In his work “ Make your own misfortune “, the philosophical writer Paul Watzlawick argued that ” The prediction of an event results in what it predicted happening. »
Jean Marie Le Pen had already warned us in 1989. Who listened to him then?
Lieutenant Jean-Marie Le Pen decorated with the Cross of Military Valor by General Massu in Algiers, March 1957. Any citation including the award of the Cross of Military Valor is considered a war title.
