Jean-Marie Le Pen, figure of the French extreme right and finalist in the 2002 presidential election, died Tuesday at the age of 96 in Garches (Hauts-de-Seine), in an establishment where he had been admitted there several weeks ago.
Published on 07/01/2025 18:59
Reading time: 4min
Jean-Marie Le Pen may have affirmed at the beginning of the 1990s that he had not “no intention of applying any censorship”that did not prevent him from having a novel banned for defamation at the end of the same decade. Mathieu Lindon’s book, entitled The trial of Jean-Marie Le Pen is then withdrawn from sale. The case will go as far as the European Court of Human Rights, which dismisses the author. “If we push the logic of this judgment to its conclusion, it means that the writer does not have to deal with reality. If the writer cannot deal with reality, he cannot write”deplores the writer.
Mathieu Lindon imagined in the book a personal responsibility of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the racist murder of a teenager by party poster pasters. A plot freely inspired by a real homicide in 1995 – the Ibrahim Ali affair – but in which the Menhir was not involved. A censorship therefore and an indignation of many writers. “There is something that needs to get our attentionexplained Philippe Sollers. When society is bad, literature is on the front line. It’s a signal.”
But for one conviction obtained, how many others attempted? In 2002, between the two rounds, they tried to prevent a film from being released in theaters. It is about Fiercewhich describes the electoral strategy of a renamed far-right party. The courts reject the National Front’s request. The end of a long obstacle course. “It’s probably the most difficult film we’ve ever had to make and it’s incredibleexplains producer Miguel Courtois. It took us years. It’s a film that no one wanted to finance. We really saw everyone, all the circuits, all the co-producers, everyone refused this film.”
In fact, it is one of the only projects on the FN to have been able to succeed. Cinema took up the subject more under the Marine Le Pen era. For his father Jean-Marie, it was rather the comedians who scratched his skin: “I am sure that there is more humanity in the eye of a dog when it wags its tail than in Le Pen’s tail when it wags its eye.”launched Pierre Desproges. “I’m the opposite of a sandwich. In fact, to make a sandwich, you have to put butter on bread. And then I prefer to put bread on butter”declared his puppet in “the Bébète Show”. “I really like the Maghreb. You may not know this, but I was a volunteer electrician in Algeria”imitates Nicolas Canteloup.
The FN boss mocked, even insulted, also in song as in Rubbishthe anthem of Bérurier noir and its refrain “youth annoys the National Front”. Still chanted today in left-wing processions. More than Zazie who expressed himself more politely in the song Everyone is beautiful : “Even if it means hurting Jean-Marie.” Zebda groups with The Beast and Sinsemilia with The Flame denounced the far-right leader.
Pro-Le Pen songs are extremely rare and come from much less well-known singers. There is the title #JMLP by White Fang. One of the only famous artists to have expressed his affection for the man was Alain Delon. “Do you consider him your friend Jean-Marie Le Pen?”asks Marc-Olivier Fogiel in his show. “But he has been for 30 yearsreplies the actor. He’s not someone I see every day, but he’s not someone I reject. I never denied my friends, no matter what he did.” But while claiming never to have voted for him. He only expressed his sympathy for the FN in 2013, once his friend had been deposed.
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