violence, incitement to hatred… A look back at the politician’s convictions

Insulting statements, dubious puns, provocations… Jean-Marie Le Pen’s career is marked by them. For a long time, these remarks remained confidential, like his party. But the electoral breakthrough of the National Front in the 1980s changed the situation: its comments on the extermination of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War caused a scandal.

This shocking point of view precedes an openly anti-Semitic slippage. In a meeting a few months later in Cap d’Agde, Jean-Marie Le Pen nicknamed the Minister of the Civil Service at the time, Michel Durafour, “Mr. Durafour crematory”. This pun led him this time to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and a fine. His comments euphemizing the German Occupation in the far-right newspaper Rivarol will earn him another fine and a three-month suspended prison sentence for contesting crimes against humanity.

In 2014, in a new play on words, he evoked artists mobilized against the far right, particularly targeting the singer Patrick Bruel, whose Jewish origins are known. Jean-Marie Le Pen will also be remembered for his attacks on Roma and homosexuals.

Watch the full report in the video above.