[ÉDITION SPÉCIALE JMLP] Jean-Marie Le Pen, officer and gentleman

That’s it, the Menhir is dead. He took care to bury all his old enemies first. Chirac, Giscard, Mitterrand, Tapie preceded him to the grave. He, the mocking bear, watched them pass along the river, as an old African proverb says (“ Sit long enough by the river and you will see the corpse of your enemy pass by “). And then it was his turn. Death is part of life. Obviously, the half-skilled people on social networks are mass copying and pasting two or three antifa schoolboy jokes (the most widespread, at the time of writing, is: “ That’s it, JMLP has become a detail of History »).

Exceptional tribune

Just as obviously, we must expect that the television channels, impartial and benevolent as usual, will sully his memory by publishing “chosen extracts” (the expression “potpourri” would perhaps be more just) of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s worst road trips. We know them all. Some have aged badly or have become criminals, others have acquired a new lease of life. Like this passage in front of the readers of the magazine Elle where, to the question “ Are you for immigration? », “Jean-Ma” replied: “ If it’s Leonardo da Vinci, it’s okay », provoking boos from right-thinking women’s magazines yesterday, giving today a tragic resonance to the uninterrupted landing, on the coasts of Europe, of under-qualified delinquents. We can also rewatch his debate with the awful Lajoinie, for a laugh.

Exceptional tribune, always ready for the castagne which “ rejuvenates », Le Pen is, with de Gaulle and Mitterrand, one of the only three politicians who really left their mark on the 20th century.^e century in France. The others? Jugglers, schemers, dancing tea flirts or, in the best case, mystical poets lost in a pitiless arena, because politics is war. Le Pen first entered the war by enlisting as a lieutenant in the Legion paratroopers. He left for Indochina in 1954 but arrived just after the fall of Ðiện Biên Phủ. He then knew Suez, then asked and obtained, while he was a deputy, permission to leave the National Assembly to go fight in Algeria. Some of our MPs probably still would, but they are not the majority of the species.

« The only candidate who contributes to Entraide Para »

From the army, and particularly from the paratroopers, Le Pen had retained a taste for fighting and flamboyant shock phrases, boldness and guts. Did the army remember him well? We don’t know. He, on the other hand, loved his military commitment. It seems that one day in 2002, a non-commissioned officer of an airborne troops regiment was heard saying to his troops: “ Vote for the candidate you want, but know that only one of them contributes to Entraide Para! » The anecdote is certainly apocryphal, but it is clear that there are probably few politicians up to date with their contributions today.

Le Pen, officer and gentleman? As counterintuitive as it may seem, why not? An eternal outrageous and pleasure-loving lieutenant, elegant in civilian clothes and serious in the fight, he leaves this earth by surprise, at the end of a life of combat that he began as a voltigeur and ended as a sentry. A silent farewell to arms for a thunderous man. As a former soldier, Le Pen perhaps knew that true moments of solemnity pass without noise, in an air heavy as uranium which silences even smiles.