Died Tuesday January 7, Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the National Front, was used to provocations. Making sulphurous statements throughout his life, the figure of the French extreme right received several convictions.
The most famous of these shocking sentences was undoubtedly when he minimized, on September 13, 1987 during the RTL-Le Monde Grand Jury, the importance of the gas chambers. “JI’m not saying that the gas chambers did not existhe said. I haven’t been able to see any myself. I have not specifically studied the question. But I believe it is a detail of the history of the Second World War.”
“Point of detail”, an outcry
The sentence caused an uproarand Jean-Marie Le Pen had been convicted twice in civil court, in 1991 then in 1999. The founder of the FN had to pay damages to associations, for trivializing crimes against humanity and “consent to the horrible“.
He nevertheless had maintained his remarks in 2015which earned him a new sentence of 30,000 euros fine, for contesting crimes against humanity.
Le Pen is used to these references to death camps. In 1988, he was already ironic about the name of the Minister of the Civil Service, Michel Durafour, whom he renamed “Mr. Durafour crematory”. In 1993, he was fined 100,000 francs for this.
“In France, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were blundershe also declared to the negationist weekly Rivarol, in 2005. If the Germans had increased mass executions in every corner, as the vulgate claims, there would have been no need for concentration camps for political deportees.“
But declare “we’ll make a batch next time” by attacking artists committed against the FN, in 2014, did not earn him a conviction for provoking racial hatred. In 2021, he was acquitted for these comments.
Homosexuals, often the target of his attacks
Another shocking sentence, thundered in front of the cameras following a fight with anti-FN activists, in Mantes-la-Jolie in 1997: “I’m going to make you run, you’re going to see redhead, come on. Eh ? Faggot! (sic)”. Jean-Marie Le Pen had launched this homophobic insult at an activist who approached him, before his entourage attacked him.
He had already, 13 years earlier, made homophobic remarks, calling homosexuality “of biological and social anomaly“.
-In 2019, he was then fined 2,400 euros for public insults aimed at homosexuals, including one towards police officer Xavier Jugelé, killed in 2017 in an attack on the Champs-Élysées. “I think that this family particularity should be kept away from this type of ceremony, which would also benefit from more discretion.“, he commented, on the sidelines of the funeral.
Racism and Islamophobia, at the heart of its controversies
It was in the 1990s that Le Pen became accustomed to controversies. During his party’s summer school in 1996, he said he believed in a “racial inequality“, these having “not all the same capabilities, nor the same level of historical evolution” according to him. Two years later, he was ordered to pay 10,000 francs to the Union of Jewish Students of France for these words.
Another sentence, another trial. In 2003, in an interview, at Mondehe said these words which earned him a conviction for “incitement to racial hatred“, and a fine of 10,000 euros.”The day we have no longer 5 million but 25 million Muslims in France, they will be in charge.“Further, he adds:”And the French will level the walls, get off the sidewalks and lower their eyes. When they don’t do it, we tell them, why are you looking at me like that, are you looking for a fight? And all you have to do is spin, otherwise you’ll get soaked.“
Despite old age, and his gradual sidelining from the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen has not stopped making polemical statements over the last decade. In 2010, in a documentary broadcast on Public Senatehe prides himself on having “bought a country house to allow my children who lived in the 15th arrondissement to see cows, instead of Arabs“. And to add “not to be afraid of pursuit” for these words.
“We were very strict with Marshal Pétain”
In Marseille, just before the 2014 European elections, another outcry. “Mr. Ebola can fix this in three months“, he dares during a discussion on “the population explosion“in the world.”I do not want the Ebola virus to spread“, he then tries to make up for it, in a press release.
But a year later, he cannot hold back yet another outing. “I never considered Marshal Pétain a traitorhe declared in an interview with Rivarol. We were very harsh with him at the Liberation.“In the midst of its seduction operation, the National Front is not letting it pass. Marine Le Pen is opposed to her father being a candidate in the regional elections in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. Beginning of decline.
Belgium
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