Throughout his political career, Jean-Marie Le Pen has made verbal provocation a privileged tool of political communication.
Virulent remarks, from inciting hatred to advocating war crimes, which earned him numerous convictions but paradoxically served his notoriety.
A look back at the most famous episodes.
Follow the full coverage
Jean-Marie Le Pen, figure of the French far right, is dead
Throughout his political career, Jean-Marie Le Pen has never resisted the pleasure of making a witticism, of provoking, even of insulting. Comments that are sometimes innocuous, often in bad taste, but which, in countless cases, have taken the form of real calls to hatred, targeted by justice. In addition to his convictions for assault and battery in the 1960s, the far-right leader, who died this Tuesday, January 7 at the age of 96, was prosecuted in 1971 for “apology for war crimes”, before build a business from the 1980s.
These media episodes, false slip-ups regularly distilled by the founder of the FN, accompanied the progress of the party, punctuating the electoral campaigns. They have, while demonizing him, nourished the notoriety of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who established among his electorate the image of the man “alone against all”, iconoclast and slayer of “right thinking”, a theme dear to the extreme right.
These sequences are numerous and have left traces in the collective memory.
“AIDS sufferers, a kind of leper”
In May 1987, while the HIV-AIDS epidemic was wreaking havoc throughout the world, and particularly in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen called for the placement of patients in specialized medical centers. In “The Hour of Truth”, he disseminated false information on the modes of contamination on this occasion. “AIDS is a neologism but I don’t know any other, it is contagious through its sweat, its tears, its saliva, its contact. He’s a kind of leper.”he says.
“A detail of History”
In September 1987, at the RTL Grand Jury-The WorldJean-Marie Le Pen speaks as part of a debate on revisionist historians, certain figures of whom he supports. “I’m not saying that gas chambers didn’t exist”he explains. “I haven’t been able to see one myself, I haven’t studied the question. But I believe it is a detail in the history of the Second World War.”
These remarks, which will follow the president of the FN throughout his political career, earned him a conviction in 1991. Which did not prevent him from repeating it in 1997, in 2008 then in 2015, exposing him to new prosecutions and convictions.
“Durafour crematorium”
As part of a speech given in September 1988 on the occasion of his party’s summer university, Jean-Marie Le Pen attacked the Minister of the Civil Service at the time, Michel Durafour, who launched a call to “exterminate the National Front”.
The far-right leader then declared: “Mr. Durafour and Dumoulin […] said: ‘We must ally ourselves in the municipal elections, including with the Communist Party, because the Communist Party is losing strength, while the extreme right continues to gain strength.’ Mr. Durafour crematorium, thank you for this confession.”
Comments which had earned him a lifting of parliamentary immunity and a conviction for public insult. In an interview in 2014, Jean-Marie Le Pen assured that he would not “didn’t regret”.
“Racial inequality”
In August 1996, Jean-Marie Le Pen indicated that he believed in “racial inequality”. “I believe in it, yes, of course”he says. “All history demonstrates this. They do not have the same capacity nor the same level of historical evolution.”
Comments reiterated in February 2015: “I said that black people run faster than white people, and swim much slower. How is that? There is a little difference, right? What is scandalous about recognizing that ?”he said during an appearance on Franceinfo.
He was convicted in February 2005 on appeal for “inciting racial hatred”, for comments made two years earlier, in which he declared to the Monde (new window): “The day we have in France, no longer 5 million, but 25 million Muslims, they will be in charge and the French will tear down the walls, walk down the sidewalks and lower their eyes.”
The German occupation “not particularly inhumane”
In an interview with the far-right weekly Rivarol in January 2005, Jean-Marie Le Pen believed that the German occupation in France “was not particularly inhumane”. He will be sentenced in 2008 to 3 months in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros.
The “odorous” presence of the Roma
In July 2013, he described the presence of Roma in Nice as “stinging” et “fragrant”ensuring that “50.000 Roms” were going to come and settle in this town. Comments which earned him a conviction on appeal in 2017. At the end of 2013, he was already condemned for comments made in September 2012, during the FN summer university, where he mocked the Roma : “We are like birds, we fly naturally.”
“Monsignor Ebola”
In May 2014, in Marseille, Jean-Marie Le Pen developed the theory of the extreme right on “risk of migratory submergence”that is to say the replacement of one population by another. While an Ebola virus epidemic, which will kill more than 11,000 people, is raging in Africa, he explains that “Monsignor Ebola can resolve this in three months”.
“The batch”
In June 2014, while mentioning the name of Patrick Bruel, among the artists who oppose the FN, Jean-Marie Le Pen had these words: “Look, we’ll make a batch next time.” These comments earned him new prosecutions for “provoking racial hatred”.
Homosexuals, “like salt in soup”
Before being hospitalized in June 2018, Jean-Marie Le Pen was to be tried for “provocation to hatred or violence” and “public insult”, for a series of comments made about homosexuals. The final episode in a long series of homophobic statements that began in 1984, when the far-right leader claimed that homosexuality was not “not a crime, but a biological and social anomaly”.
On his blog, he declared in March 2016: “I believe that pedophilia, which has found its letters of nobility prohibited, but all the same, in the exaltation of homosexuality, calls into question all professions which approach childhood and youth.” In December 2016, he explained, in an interview with Figaro : “Homosexuals are like salt in soup. If there isn’t any at all it’s a bit bland, if there’s too much it’s undrinkable.” On the day of the funeral of Xavier Jugelé, the police officer killed in an attack in 2017 on the Champs-Élysées, he saw fit to declare that “this family peculiarity” (his homosexuality, editor’s note) had to “be kept away from this type of ceremony, which would also benefit from more discretion”. The police officer’s companion joined the civil action.
-
Read also
Death of Jean-Marie Le Pen: Marine Le Pen learned of his disappearance on her plane returning from Mayotte
Finally, in March 2018, in an interview with the gay magazine Friendlyhe had denied being homophobic. “Besides, most of my colleagues are homosexuals.”he assured. Then: “As long as homosexuals don’t put their hands in my fly or those of my grandchildren, and they don’t walk around with a feather up their ass on the Champs-Élysées, that’s it for me. is equal”.
Jean-Marie Le Pen’s comments earned him a little less than thirty convictions in total.
