how was the National Rally born? Understand in three minutes

The man who structured the French far right died on Tuesday January 7 at the age of 96. Public figure of the National Front for forty years – a party he co-founded in 1972 – Jean-Marie Le Pen withdrew from political life in 2011. In 2002, he managed for the first time to raise the National Front in the second round of the presidential election, creating a political shock that is still remembered.

In the 1968 legislative elections, the far right did not receive 1% of the vote. It is the unification of its various currents in the National Front for French Unity, the dream of the neofascist François Duprat, which will create the structure of the most extreme fringe of the French right. And to publicly embody this new party whose components are rather associated with violence and hatred, a figure deemed more consensual is chosen by its leaders: Jean-Marie Le Pen, who will despite everything later be condemned several times, in particular for provoking hatred, discrimination and racial violence, condoning war crimes and contesting crimes against humanity.

This video goes back to the roots of the National Rally. To understand how Jean-Marie Le Pen structured the French far right, we invite you to read his obituary.