According to the old proverb, the dead should be spoken well or not at all. If you stick to it, Jean-Marie Le Pen's obituary would should be empty, at least in the public activity section. The political career of the creator of the National Front was built on sowing hatred, negating or depreciating the Holocaust, making Muslims scapegoats and continuous court battles, where Le Pen usually acted as a defendant.
Ironically, the patriarch of the French far right left at 10th anniversary of the "Charlie Hebdo" bombing” with whom he was always quarreling. The satirical writing of the time fought for the illegalisation of the National Front, with very good reasons, especially if you look at the roots of the main nationalist organization of France and its co-founders.
Le Pen's Nazi colleagues
When the National Front was formed in 1972, Jean-Marie Le Pen was elected as its leader, who had already had a short parliamentary experience, reaching the National Assembly from the list of Pierre Poujade's populist movement. This was a mostly tactical choice, as Le Pen was among the most average among the founders of the fresh party. So who were the others?
Among them, we will find members of the OAS, which opposed the dismantling of the French colonial empire and was liable for the failed assassinations of president De Gaulle. Additionally, there will be collaborators from planet War II, active in the construction of Vichy France, belonging to fascist militants and liable for violent repression against the resistance. In any case, the co-founders of the National Front were SS men from the French division of the Waffen SS, specified as Léon Gaultier or Pierre Bousquet.
The latter, acting as treasurer of the fresh party, had a fewer years earlier been expelled from the racist-nationalist European Freedom Movement for Nazism and organizing reading seminars Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler. Bousquet, on the another hand, was to hit a guillotine for collaboration just after the war, but the death punishment was yet replaced for respective years in prison. Many another early FN leaders besides had unexecuted death sentences, prison stays, or national degradation punishment (a peculiar sanction taking distant part of civilian rights from collaborators), but Le Pen would not be disturbed by the face of organizations with specified staff.
Jean-Marie himself was not far from them. He besides bleached Collaborate France Vichy, called Marshal Pétain a hero larger than De Gaulle, and he considered leaving Algeria a disgrace to the latter. A twelve years before the establishment of the Le Pen National Front, he volunteered to fight to keep French regulation over the North African state, which is another shameful card of his biography.
From torture of Algerians to second circular of presidential elections
We French Algeria Jean-Marie Le Pen served as an intelligence officer and He was celebrated for his brutality.How he treated suspects for collaboration with the National Firearms FLN, and sometimes random people. many accounts – both victims and comrades in arms – talk about beating Algerians, torture with electroshocks and the execution of any of them. At home, 1 of the victims of an interrogation (tortured and killed in front of the children) French lieutenant He lost his knife., suspiciously akin to the model originally produced for Hitlerjugend, with the inscription "J.M. Le Pen 1er REP" engraved.
The same curious respective years after the war confessed to the usage of torture in Algeria, but this explained the request for key information from “terrorists” and denied most of the accusations. He sometimes sued media and historians accusing him of torturing civilians, although he was more frequent in court as a defendant. Le Pen's political career was marked by controversy, fierce polemics and hatred speech.
For apology of war crimes, discrimination against LGBT people, attacks on spiritual minorities and insults against political opponents The founder of the National Front heard a full of more than 25 convictions. respective of them afraid Le Pen's statements that gas chambers were only a "detal of history" – hence, after his death, it was frequently ironic that Jean-Marie became that detail. another court trials afraid his racist imagination of France, in which he saw no place for citizens of improper origin or religion. The FN leader divided society into actual and "paper" Frenchmen, expanding social tensions.
Despite continuous court battles, the National Front grew stronger and Jean-Marie Le Pen became its undisputed leader. Based on its campaigns on opposition to immigration, Euroscepticism, extremist anti-communism and ultraconservativeism, the utmost right was settled in the 1980s on the French political scene, scoring in each subsequent election from 10 to respective percent of the vote. In 2002, thanks to the fragmentation of the left, this proved adequate to present itself in the second circular of the presidential election, which was a profound shock for France at the time, to encourage citizens to vote massly on Chirac, against Le Pen.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was incapable to break the glass ceiling, remained besides controversial and radical, but his daughter made effective de-demonising the National Front, winning as many as a 3rd of the vote in the last election and making a centre-right government dependent on the support of nationalists. The elder Le Pen paid for this process with expulsion from the party, but he himself experienced far-reaching rehabilitation, as shown by the reactions after the death of the Nestor of the far right.
Death on the streets, greeted with regret in government circles
Naturally, Jean-Marie's departure was saddened by his political environment, mourning the death of a "man of state" and "patriot". On the another hand, the left did not spare the deceased the criticism, giving him all the blames and clearly stating that a man had died, but not his political ideas, which inactive request to be fought. Many French people had little balanced opinions spontaneously celebrating Le Pen's death in the streets of all the large cities of France, where fireworks were fired and champagne bottles opened, like fresh Year's.
This in turn was met with harsh condemnation by government politicians, with conservative head of MMA Bruno Retaileau at the head. The centre-right attitude here is the most symptomatic of the normalization of the extremist right in the French mainstream. The fresh chief of government François Bayrou commented on the death of the founder of the National Front very pleasurably, calling Le Pen an crucial figure of French political life and a warrior, but aside from silent racism, an unpleasant past or dozens of court sentences. Anyway, Most Macronists chose silence total, most likely not wanting to express their actual opinion of the party's founders with whom they found themselves in informal coalition.
France has changed since 2002, erstwhile president Chirac refused to debate with the leader of the far right, and opposition to Le Pen combined over 80% of voters. These were besides times erstwhile the political center inactive belonged to the main opponents of nationalists, remembering the harmfulness of their ideas and roots of the National Front. At 1 time, Le Pen and his colleagues came to disrupt Simone Veil's encounter, the face of the fight over women's rights and at the same time a judaic survivor of the Holocaust, she threw at them “I'm not afraid of you, I've survived gathering worse than you, you're just SS men in short shortsIt’s okay. ”
Now their heirs are 1 step distant from power, trying hard to rewrite the uncomfortable past. It is so worth reminding about the actual views of Jean-Marie Le Pen or the identities of another founders of the National Front, due to the fact that although nationalists have done much to improve the image, the apple falls close the apple tree.
