Death of Jean-Marie Le Pen: in La Trinité-sur-Mer, his native commune in Morbihan, he was respected but not appreciated

“Brittany, I care about it physically, physically, intellectually“: this is what Jean-Marie Le Pen declared in 1973 on television. The founder of the National Front, which has since become the National Rally, is died this Tuesday at the age of 96 in Hauts-de-Seinein an establishment where he had been admitted several weeks ago. Although he led his political career in Paris, he always retained a certain attachment to his native land, a region where he regularly came to visit.resources“. “I’m from Brittany first of all, of course“, he often explained.

A figure of the extreme right in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen was born in the family home of La Trinité-sur-Mer, to a seamstress mother and a fisherman father. He became a ward of the Nation at the age of 14 when his father died at sea by jumping on a mine in the bay of Quiberon, during the Second World War. After completing his schooling in the commune, he went to college in Vannes, then to Lorient. If he then returns to the capital, the founder of the FN regularly returns to the lands of his childhood, spending numerous family vacations in his farmhouse. “He remained very attached to The Trinity“, underlines Florent de Kersauson, RN regional advisor and family friend.

“A pain in the ass but someone exceptional”

In La Trinité-sur-Mer, those who knew the patriarch simply called him Jean. “We’re the same age, he’s the same year as me, 1928explains a retiree from the town. We were friends, we went to the beach together. For us, he was Jean and his mother called him Jean Jean.“But residents only rarely reveal secrets about the politician.”When we ask people here, “do you know the house”, no one says itexplains a resident. We are still all discreet, that cannot be said.”

The house of the Le Pen clan, a white farmhouse with blue shutters, is located in the heart of the town of the commune. “It’s a fishermen’s farmhouse, when we were kids, it was very simple. There was running water but no bathroom. It’s a normal house, like there are a few in the town.“, describes Florent de Kersauson. For the regional councilor of Brittany, Jean-Marie Le Pen “has always been well regarded here, not adored because of his political commitment which was not necessarily always well regarded.“Florent de Kersauson qualifies it”annoying“but it was”someone exceptional“, “not just anyone“.

Today, the family home belongs to Marine Le Pen and her sister, Yann. Jean-Marie Le Pen was last seen there in the summer of 2023, on the occasion of the wedding of one of his granddaughters.