Apart from the blondness of their respective descendants, nothing seems to link Donald Trump and Jean-Marie Le Pen from the outside. However, well before the meteoric rise of the 46th elected American president, the figure of the French extreme right was already applying the populist formula which today appeals to so many voters in Europe and across the Atlantic.
Looking more closely, Jean-Marie Le Pen “was already doing Trump before Trump,” notes the journalist and author of Testament of the Devil: the last secrets of Jean-Marie Le PenAzzeddine Ahmed-Chaouch. An obsessive refrain on immigration and foreigners, theatrical gestures and provocative words, a certain fascination for authoritarian leaders… A brief review of the characteristics found in the two tempestuous politicians.
Excessive verbal and physical communication
Faced with the long speeches and argued debates of his political opponents, the Jean-Marie Le Pen style stood out. His taste for the shock word that will get people talking has allowed him to become, over time, a fixture on the political scene. When the media were reluctant to hand him the microphone, refusing to relay his excesses (punished by law), “he understood the power of the media buzz, of the little phrase, taking advantage of the little speaking time that we offered it to him,” analyzes Azzeddine Ahmed-Chaouch.
“It’s a bit of a pioneer of what we see today on social networks like TikTok, it goes quickly, it’s short and punchy, it’s the strategy of the slogan, simple, even simplistic sentences” , adds the journalist. “Jean-Marie Le Pen is not the inventor of this strategy,” nevertheless recalls Virginie Tisserant, doctor in contemporary political history, associate researcher at the Telemme-CNRS laboratory. But it resonates today in the mouth of one of the most thunderous populist leaders: Donald Trump. The violence of the chosen words and the invective punctuate his speeches, with a vocabulary quite limited to that of a 10-year-old child, according to the Flesh-Kincaid test which assesses language levels.
We also find in the two men “strong gestures, carefully crafted arrivals on stage, with V-shaped arms or raised fists”, underlines Azzeddine Ahmed-Chaouch.
Obsessive themes
These speeches serve to convey obsessions as simple as the words chosen. First of all, for both Jean-Marie Le Pen and Donald Trump, the fight against immigration. “A million unemployed are a million immigrants”, chanted the National Front, a slogan which anchors the defense of “French first”. Today, he echoes the famous “America first” of the American Republican president, which he wishes to implement through plans to deport illegal migrants whom he describes as “hordes of criminals”.
-In addition to national preference, which often goes hand in hand with hatred of foreigners, Jean-Marie Le Pen was driven by nostalgia for the supposed greatness of a France of the past, that of the colonial empire and therefore of the French Algeria. A recurring theme among various far-rights, such as Vox in Spain, which looks back on the Franco years with a certain melancholy. “The entire extreme right capitalizes on this notion of past greatness, it is common in many countries,” notes Virginie Tisserant. Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” are no exception.
A fascination with the “strong man”
Positioning yourself as the main opponent of an elitist political world by invoking the anti-system label is again a fairly common populist maneuver. Despite his 8.3 hectare Montretout estate on the heights of the chic suburb of Saint-Cloud, Jean-Marie Le Pen took up this refrain of the political outsider in opposition to a political class trained in schools reserved for high society. A contradiction repeated by Donald Trump. Despite his real estate empire and his media past, the billionaire was able to don the costume of the anti-system candidate and establish himself as such in his electorate.
Our file on the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen
On a global scale, this marginal vision generates a particular fascination for pariah leaders on the international scene, especially those who hold their people with an iron fist. Jean-Marie Le Pen admired the former king of Morocco Hassan II, defended Muammar Gaddafi or even Saddam Hussein, recalls Le Monde Africa. Donald Trump did not hide his admiration for Vladimir Putin, whom he described in 2015 as a “strong leader”, “powerful leader”.
For both, “we remain in an uninhibited far-right diatribe,” remarks Virginie Tisserant, with one big difference: Jean-Marie Le Pen never came to power and could have been condemned on several occasions for his racist, homophobic or xenophobic comments. Donald Trump “is not condemned, he is even re-elected,” notes the specialist. On the other hand, violence in politics has, since the Le Pen senior years, been “totally unbridled, part of a deep crisis of democracy”, finally regrets Virginie Tisserant.
