The co-founder of the National Front died this Tuesday, January 7, and leaves behind the Montretout estate, the political stronghold of his party which strongly contributed to the development of the FN.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, a figure of the far right in France, died this Tuesday, January 7 at the age of 96. From his first mandate as deputy for the Seine to his position as a European deputy, including the creation of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen built his party and his political ideologies over the years, until becoming a finalist in the presidential election of 2002.
The co-founder of the National Front cultivated his rise to the polls year after year for decades. His residence, the Montretout estate, located on the heights of Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) will become the hub of the French extreme right.
In the 1970s, the estate was the property of Hubert Lambert, heir to the eponymous cement family and supporter of the small group that was then the National Front. He greatly contributed to the financing of the party, and quickly, the friendship between the two men grew.
Historian Valérie Igounet quotes in her 2014 book The National Front from 1972 to the present day: the party, the men, the ideas Lorrain de Saint-Affrique, long political advisor to Jean-Marie Le Pen, who summed up the relationship in one sentence: “Without Lambert no FN, without Le Pen no Lambert”.
Single and without children, the heir died in September 1976 and made Jean-Marie Le Pen his universal heir. The boss of the FN, son of a fisherman and a seamstress who grew up in a modest, Catholic family, then found himself the owner of the historic Montretout park.
The legacy of Montretout, the beginning of freedom for the FN
The news makes the front page. This small candidate who received 0.75% of the votes during the presidential elections of 1974 and who has difficulty paying electricity bills, claims to be the sole heir of a rich businessman, although the family of ‘Hubert Lambert contests the will and accuses the far-right man of having manipulated the deceased.
From then on, Jean-Marie Le Pen made the Château de Montretout his political stronghold. A symbol, according to Olivier Beaumont, author of the book Montretout’s Hell.
“It’s a house on the other side of Paris, the capital, the place of power. The Château de Montretout was not in the system, not in Paris, as Jean-Marie Le Pen saw his party,” says the author in an interview given to West France in 2022.
The three billion old francs inherited from Hubert Lambert also make it possible to develop the far-right strategy and pay the bills. From that moment on, nothing stopped the FN.
“The Lambert legacy has completely transformed the life of the politician”, assures Valérie Igounet in the France Inter podcast Jean-Marie Le Pen, the national obsession. “From this legacy, Jean-Marie Le Pen will do politics as he sees fit.”
A freedom which will be felt in his campaigns: Jean-Marie Le Pen launched into the battle for the legislative elections in 1978 and then openly made the fight against immigration his number 1 fight to stem social problems in France. With a slogan: “a million unemployed is a million too many immigrants”.
The 1980s followed, a turning point for the party as the left rose to power. Jean-Marie Le Pen will then lend himself more and more to the game of provocation, particularly with denialist speeches.
Dynasty and staging
It is also within Montretout that the Le Pen dynasty is being built. Marine Le Pen grew up there from the age of 8, with his sisters. All of them are immersed in their father’s politics and Jean-Marie Le Pen makes it known: he features the private hotel on multiple occasions in the media via photo sessions with his family.
And if Montretout is the family’s residence, it nonetheless remains an HQ of the National Front. Jean-Marie Le Pen used it as a political tool for years. “There has always been a mixture of genres there which has given this house its gravitas,” assures Olivier Beaumont in Ouest-France.
In fact, the head of the FN also organized major parties there from 1978, to which actors, singers, journalists, politicians and other influential figures were invited. “Le Pen’s parties were something all the same,” a close friend of Marine Le Pen told Challenges in 2017. These renowned parties continued until the 2000s.
Worldly affairs which will not diminish his popularity with his electorate, continuing to highlight his modest origins. For Olivier Beaumont, “Montretout is not a thorn”.
“He can just as easily throw out quotes in Latin and hold his own against very cultured people as he can be perfectly at ease in a factory, with workers.”
If at the end of his life, Jean-Marie Le Pen had established his residence in Rueil-Malmaison, the history of the Montretout mansion remains closely linked to that of the National Front and the image of the Le Pen family .
