This past week that just ended has left us at the age of 96, Jean Marie Le Pen, one of the most influential politicians in France and Europe in the last forty years of history. The founder of the National Front is considered by many experts and analysts as the man who revived fascism in Europe and marked a turning point in French politics.
Le Pen is regarded as the father of the far-right in the neighboring country. He began his political life around 1956 when he served as a deputy in the French National Assembly of the Fourth Republic; today we are in the era of the Fifth Republic. A man from a moment in history already past lived through World War II and was a veteran of the Indochina and Algerian wars, something that strongly shaped his character.
Known for his racist speeches, he participated in five elections for the presidency of the French Republic, although he never reached power; he did manage to persuade some that breaking the monopoly of progressives and conservatives was possible.
INICIOS DEL FRENTE NACIONAL
The beginnings of his party, the National Front, date back to 1972. When a host of far-right small groups were divided and at odds with one another. In that context, young fascist-leaning militants, collaborators of the Petain regime, veterans of the harsh and cruel Algerian War, and even a former member of the Nazi SS founded the French National Front.
To lead it they chose Le Pen, thinking he was a manipulable man, and above all because he had already served as a deputy in the Assembly previously. Le Pen, far from all of this, led the party with an iron fist for almost forty years. Turning it, as the leader himself proclaimed, into the stronghold of the popular right.
Always seeking the support of former soldiers and those resentful about the defeat in the Algerian War, Le Pen unified his discourse around French nationalism, against ultraliberal policies and a marked antisemitism that always accompanied him and that translated into many confrontations even with his daughter, more inclined to attack Islam than Judaism.
EVOLUCIÓN POLÍTICA
His success was not immediate and he spent many years outside the parliamentary fold, leading a marginal and little-recognized force among French society that had emerged after the May ’68 events. But gradually he gained ground thanks to his political intuition and to seeing the social problem that immigration could pose for the Gallic country.
He softened his fierce image, wore an eyepatch on his left eye that he later replaced with a glass eye, and focused his discourse on the alleged ills of immigration. To this end he used his charisma and his command of television language during the era of François Mitterrand. In those eighties which were the golden era of televised political debates.
In this way he gradually built an electorate that in the year 2002 came close to breaking the traditional political system of the neighboring country, when Le Pen stood a chance in the presidential elections of that year. He did not succeed, but since then no one took his harsh and aggressive speeches lightly.
“We are socially left-wing, economically right-wing and nationally French,” thus defined his ideology at that time. These ideas earned him quite a few votes among France’s left-wing electorate.
But his continual outbursts, with racist proclamations and his antisemitism, caused him to lose momentum in 2010; he had to step back to make way for his own daughter, Marine Le Pen, who refounded the party and set out to appeal to the liberal electorate. Turning the old party of his father from a shock force into a party of government.
CONDOLENCIAS
The Élysée also expressed condolences to Le Pen’s family and those close to him, in a statement in which the office of Emmanuel Macron reviews the life of this “historic figure of the far right”, who “played a role in the country’s public life” for “almost seventy years.” Now, “he remains subject to the judgment of History.”
For his part, the French prime minister, François Bayrou, also noted that Le Pen was a significant figure in political life, “beyond the controversies, his preferred weapon, and the necessary clashes over the substance” of his ideology. “By confronting him, we learned how combative he was,” he added on the social network X.
Less ambiguous was the former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a key figure on the left, who notes that the “dignity” of the dead and the “pain” their loved ones may feel does not prevent actions “unbearable” like those of Jean Marie Le Pen from being judged. “The fight against the man is over. The fight against hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism continues,” he proclaimed.
