The historic far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Penwho died on Tuesday at the age of 96, was buried this Saturday in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer, in the Brittany region, in “the strictest privacy” – as his family wished – but under a large police force. For this reason, although its radius of action has been very restricted, the media has captured the arrival of the guests, led by his daughter Marine Le Pen, dressed in rigorous black and accompanied by her older sister, Marie Caroline.
The remains of Jean-Marie Le Pen already rest, thus, in the small cemetery of La Trinité-sur-Mer, in the family grave where his father, a fisherman, and his mother, a seamstress, are buried. Before the funeral, which was attended by about 200 guests, The town church hosted a mass of about two hours in tribute to the founder of the National Front (FN).
One of the granddaughters of the patriarch Le Pen was also caught on camera, Marion Maréchal, current MEP and prominent figure of the Catholic ultranationalist current in France. He has also attended the funeral services. Jordan Bardellapresident of the RN and Marine Le Pen’s dolphin.
Both events were closed to the press and were attended by about 100 police and gendarmerie officers to avoid riots, given the controversial character of the former leader, convicted several times of anti-Semitism and xenophobia and accused of having practiced torture when he participated in the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962).
In fact, the Government delegation in Morbihan banned demonstrations in La Trinité-sur-Mer this Saturday due to the risk that the funeral services attracted a good number of admirersbut also critics.
Last Tuesday, the day of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s death, thousands of people publicly celebrated his death in several French cities, which outraged the French Government itself, who repudiated “dancing on a corpse.”
In a survey carried out by Odoxa, 68% of French people have a bad opinion of the founder of the National Front (FN)later renamed the National Rally (RN) – a formation led today by Marine Le Pen -.
After the funeral this Saturday, Le Pen will have a last ceremony tribute – this time open to the press – next Thursday, in the church of Notre Dame du Val-de-Grâce, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
”The devil of the Republic”
Jean-Marie Le Pen, provocateur and media man par excellence and emblem of the ‘anti’ (immigration, Europe, homosexual, semitic)managed to resurrect the extreme right in his country and managed to sneak the issue of immigration into the public debate, making it, for years, one of the main concerns of the electorate.
Inspirer of similar movements in Europe, the one known as ‘the devil of the Republic’ had his stellar moment when, in 2002, he was ahead of the socialist Lionel Jospin and competed in the presidential final against the conservative Jacques Chirac. which created a ‘shock’ in French society, that manifested itself in crowds.
Already in his eighties, he also nicknamed ‘the Menhir’ handed over command of the FN to his daughter Marine in 2011. She carried out a campaign to ‘de-diabolize’ the party – renamed the National Group in 2018 – that displeased her father, who He was expelled in 2015 from the formation he had created in 1972 for statements that relativized the Holocaust and the Nazi occupation.
Maintaining Euroscepticism and her father’s fight against immigration, Marine Le Pen, however, took a social turn in economic and liberal customs – cornering radical anti-abortion or homophobia positions. So, managed to make it to the second round in the presidential elections of 2017 and 2022, both lost to Emmanuel Macron.
If she is not disqualified by the courts in March for a case of embezzlement by assistants of “ghost” MEPs, Marine Le Pen is, today, the figure with the most chances of winning the presidential elections 2027. Father and daughter, fighting for several years, ended up reconciling.
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