The entire far right gathered on Thursday for a final tribute to Jean-Marie Le Pen at the Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâce church in Paris. The founder of the National Front, who died on January 7 at the age of 96, was buried in family privacy on Saturday in Brittany.
His three daughters, Marie-Caroline, Yann and Marine Le Pen, however, wanted to organize another tribute, in Paris, this one open to the public. But only the approximately 400 guests were able to enter the church: the onlookers, around 2000, were confined to the square, on which two giant screens stood.
In addition to the members of the National Rally (RN), its president Jordan Bardella at the head, all the groups of the extreme right had made the trip, including the opponent of Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, but also the dissidents Carl Lang or Bruno Mégret, former number two of the FN who broke with Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1998. Philippe de Villiers was also present.
The historian specializing in the far right Jean-Yves Camus was also in the church.
Unwanted
On the other hand, several undesirable ultra-right personalities have been relegated to the outside, such as the negationists Thomas Joly, president of the Pétainist Parti de la France, or Yvan Benedetti, its founder. “Repressed with the pariahs,” tweeted the first with a photo also showing Jérôme Bourbon, the boss of the far-right weekly Rivarol.
Remaining in the street near the church, the former comedian Dieudonné, convicted of anti-Semitism, estimated that Jean-Marie Le Pen “was a free man” in the middle of a “political landscape that was perhaps too narrow”.
“I will not dwell on the political commitments of Mr. Le Pen, which are not within my competence, except that they have always been motivated by the love of France,” for his part. assured Father Christophe Kowalczyk at the start of the service.
During this mass lasting more than an hour and a half, Bruno Gollnisch, an old traveling companion of Jean-Marie Le Pen, spoke, as did Marie-Christine Arnautu, very close to the founder of the FN, and her daughter Marie-Caroline Le Pen, who celebrated an “indomitable patriot”.
“A true idea”
More political, the speeches of Marion Maréchal – who had moved away from her aunt Marine Le Pen for a time to support Eric Zemmour, before getting closer to the RN again – and of Louis Aliot, former companion of Marine Le Pen, were applauded.
“We do not stop a people on the march, we do not stop a true idea, we do not stop a fair example,” thundered Marion Maréchal. The mayor of Perpignan recalled that by qualifying for the second round of the 2002 presidential election, “he shook the system, eliminating the left while remaining faithful to its history, its ideas, its values and its friends” .
The former president of the National Youth Front then began a litany of his deceased political companions, from OAS activist Roger Holeign to Jean-Pierre Stirbois, the man of the party’s first electoral successes in the years 80.
Several grandchildren of Jean-Marie Le Pen had previously taken turns to read part of the homily, one of them calling to pray “for France”: “May the French know how to choose to govern them and wise and just men will guide them.
Prayer of the paratroopers
Many prayers were read or sung, including the prayer of the paratroopers, the prayer to Joan of Arc and a prayer by the Catholic writer Charles Péguy, “The faith that I love best is God, “is hope.”
Around the church, before the ceremony, we could hear Verdi’s “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” – in a German version -, which Mr. Le Pen already played in his meetings, and see a richly decorated cart at the glory of the imperial guard.
Throughout the ceremony, flag bearers in different colored berets were placed on either side of the church. Behind them, at the foot of a statue in front of the church, we could see “foot noir forever” stickers on a large stole in the colors of the RN.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
