French far right hails ‘patriot’, left slams ‘racist’ as Jean-Marie Le Pen dies at 96

07/01/2025 - 19:21

'We said, no presents': Charlie Hebdo reacts to Le Pen's passing

The satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose Paris headquarters were stormed in a deadly jihadist attack 10 years ago today, has reacted to news of Jean-Marie Le Pen's death with a typically sardonic cartoon.

The drawing, posted on its Instagram account, features Charlie Hebdo's slain cartoonists in heaven with a 10-year birthday cake, quipping: "We said 'no presents'."

07/01/2025 - 18:53

'Maréchal, le voilà': Newspaper frontpage recalls Le Pen's Vichy support

Left-wing daily Libération recalls Jean-Marie Le Pen's support for the Nazi-allied Vichy Regime of Marshal Pétain on the frontpage of tomorrow's print edition, with a reference to the wartime propaganda song "Maréchal nous voilà".

07/01/2025 - 18:38

Marine Le Pen learned of father's death during Nairobi stopover

Marine Le Pen was at Nairobi airport for a technical stopover when she learned of her father's death from journalists on board her flight.

The National Rally figurehead, who succeeded her father at the party's helm in 2011, was returning from a trip to the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, which was devastated by a cyclone last month.

Marine Le Pen, who was expected to return to Paris later on Tuesday, is yet to comment on the passing of her father.

The two had recently reconciled after years of bitter spats over Marine Le Pen's efforts to "detoxify" the far right and distance the party from her father's extremist image.

07/01/2025 - 18:17

Le Pen alerted France to 'existential threats', says far right's Zemmour

Eric Zemmour, the former pundit and presidential candidate who has sparred with Marine Le Pen for control of the far right, has paid tribute to her father in a post on X.

"Beyond the controversies, beyond the scandals, what we will remember about him in the coming decades is that he was among the first to alert France to the existential threats that awaited it," wrote Zemmour – who, like Le Pen senior, has been convicted of hate speech.

"His legacy will be his vision and his courage, at a time when courageous men were not so numerous," Zemmour added.

07/01/2025 - 18:06

Le Pen's mindset shaped by rearguard battle against decolonisation

The party co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972 was the latest incarnation of a political current that rejected the French Revolution, despised the Republic, embraced anti-Semitism, sided with the Nazi-allied Vichy Regime, and fought a rearguard battle against decolonisation.

A former paratrooper and Foreign Legionnaire who fought to maintain French colonial rule in Indochina and Algeria, Le Pen was a fierce critic of decolonisation and would find a first bastion of support among the "pieds noirs" – French settlers who returned to the mainland after Algeria's independence from France.

07/01/2025 - 17:40

Left criticises French PM's statement on 'fighter' Le Pen

Several politicians on the left have criticised Prime Minister François Bayrou’s comments on the passing of Jean-Marie Le Pen, whom the French PM described as a "fighter" and an instigator of polemics.

“Racism, hatred of Muslims and anti-Semitism are not polemics. They are offenses punished by law,” said Paul Vannier, a lawmaker from the hard-left La France insoumise (France Unbowed).

“He was a racist. An anti-Semite. A colonialist. Nostalgic for the Vichy regime. An antifeminist... A repeat offender who founded the (National Front) with SS soldiers,” added Pierre Jouvet of the Socialist Party.

07/01/2025 - 17:28

Analysis: Many of Le Pen’s ‘toxic’ ideas have now gone mainstream

Long considered toxic, many of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s ideas have gradually made their way into the political mainstream, says Renaud Foucart, senior lecturer at Lancaster University, reflecting on Le Pen’s legacy.

The fringe party Le Pen led for decades has now become a major political force under his daughter Marine, adds Foucart, noting that Marine Le Pen owes her father everything.

07/01/2025 - 17:19

'Nationalist Europe loses a founding father', says Belgian Flemish far-right leader

European nationalists have lost a "founding father" with the passing of Jean-Marie Le Pen, says Tom Van Grieken, the head of the Belgian Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang.

"He was an example for our party in many ways. Sometimes stubborn, often inflexible, but always straightforward and true to his principles," Van Grieken wrote in a post on X.

07/01/2025 - 17:05

April 2002: When Le Pen reached presidential runoff in 'political earthquake'

On April 21, 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the nation by scoring 16.8% in the first round of France's presidential election — edging out a fractured left to reach the second-round runoff against the incumbent, Jacques Chirac.

But a Le Pen victory was not to be. In a rare joining of forces, supporters of the right and left poured into the streets of France in a massive show of solidarity against him. On May 5, 2002, Chirac was returned to office with a record 82% of the vote.

07/01/2025 - 16:53

Mélenchon: 'The fight against (Le Pen) is over. The fight against racism goes on'

Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon has referenced Le Pen's long history of hate speech in his first reaction to the late far-right leader's death.

"Respect for the dignity of the dead and the grief of their loved ones does not erase the right to judge their actions. Those of Jean-Marie Le Pen remain unbearable," Mélenchon wrote on X.

"The fight against the man is over. The fight against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that he spread continues."

07/01/2025 - 16:30

Le Pen 'defended French identity and sovereignty', says far right's Jordan Bardella

Jordan Bardella, the chairman of the rebranded National Rally, has paid tribute to the party's co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in a post on X, recalling his past service in the French army.

"Enlisted in the uniform of the French army in Indochina and Algeria, orator in the National Assembly and the European Parliament, he always served France, defended its identity and its sovereignty," Bardella wrote.

"Today my thoughts are with his family, his loved ones, and of course of (his daughter) Marine whose mourning must be respected," he added.

A fierce opponent of decolonisation, Le Pen senior defended the French army's widespread use of torture in the Algerian war of independence, first admitting – and later denying – that he used such practices himself.

07/01/2025 - 16:21

Analysis: 'A towering figure of the French far right'

FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman and Angela Diffley take a look at the legacy of a hugely controversial politician who tapped into working-class concerns over immigration and globalisation to shake up the French political establishment and change French political discourse.

07/01/2025 - 16:18

Jean-Marie Le Pen was a 'fighter', says French PM

French Prime Minister François Bayrou has described the late far-right leader as a "fighter" and a "figure of French political life."

"JM Le Pen was a figure of French political life," Bayrou said on X. "When we fought him, we knew what a fighter he was."

07/01/2025 - 16:05

'History will judge' Le Pen's role in France, says Élysée Palace

Jean-Marie Le Pen was "a historic figure of the French far right", the French presidency has said in a statement, adding that President Emmanuel Macron sent his condolences to Le Pen's family.

The terse statement added that "history will judge" Le Pen's role in French political life. 

07/01/2025 - 15:54

Le Pen was the far-right 'bogeyman' of French politics

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died Tuesday aged 96, was the far-right bogeyman of French politics, infamously dismissing the Holocaust as a detail of history and spending half a century whipping up anger over immigration.

After decades on the fringes, his political career climaxed in April 2002 when he stormed into the second round of France's presidential election, defying pollsters' predictions and knocking out the election's frontrunner Lionel Jospin.

07/01/2025 - 15:51

Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right's longtime leader, dies at 96

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former paratrooper who co-founded France’s National Front and led the French far right over several decades, has died aged 96.

A deeply divisive figure, Le Pen was known for his fiery rhetoric against immigrants and multiculturalism, and his numerous convictions for hate speech and Holocaust denial.

Despite those convictions and his status as the perennial outcast of French politics, his nativist, "French first" ideas remain ascendant in today's France, carried by his daughter and political heir Marine Le Pen.