The funeral of the former leader of the French extreme right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, took place on Saturday afternoon in his hometown of Trinité-sur-Mer, west of the country, in the presence of his family and some relatives. , reports AFP.
His daughter Marine Le Pen, who took the reins of the party founded by her father, the National Front (FN), which would later become the National Rally (RN), and one of his sisters, Marie-Caroline, followed by another family. the members of the family’s house, walking the few hundred meters from the family’s house to the church of Saint Joseph, with a group of curious people and several dozen journalists.
Admirers came to say goodbye
About 200 people entered the church where, for an hour and a half, the funeral took place, during which a considerable device of the police was placed to avoid any kind of incident.
The precautionary measure was deemed necessary in the context in which, on Tuesday evening, several hundred opponents of the dead politician gathered in several cities of the country, such as Paris, Lyon and Rennes, to celebrate, with smoke and fireworks, the death of Le Pen. “The racist jegos is dead,” reads a poster displayed in Paris.
These demonstrations were strongly condemned by the RN, which referred to the demonstrators with the term “left nudity”, and also by the French government. “Dead, and the enemy has the right to respect,” said the spokesman of the executive in Paris.
On Friday, the prefect decided to ban the demonstrations in Le Pen’s hometown, citing that the personality of the deceased is “likely to attract, during the religious ceremony and burial, a large audience made up of supporters and opponents”. The body of Jean-Marie Le Pen was placed in the same vault where his parents rest.
“I came to pay tribute to the man who served France and loved France,” Johann, a 40-year-old man who lives in a nearby town, told AP.
“We came to pay tribute to a great man who had the courage to say things by name. He was a visionary. He loved France and its people and had values that are being lost, like love for the nation,” says Ludovic (43).
A political career of 40 years
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French far-right Front National party, he died at the age of 96his family announced on Tuesday, quoted by the French press. “Jean-Marie Le Pen, surrounded by his family, was called to God at noon on Tuesday,” the family said in a statement sent to AFP.
With an aggressive mix of populism, eloquence and charisma, Le Pen rewrote the parameters of French politics in a 40-year career and, capitalizing on voter discontent over immigration and job security, announced in a way the rise of Donald Trump to the world. The White House, writes Reuters. Before “America First”, Trump’s policy, was Le Pen’s slogan: “Français d’abord” – “Frenchmen first”
Le Pen shocked the French political establishment when she unexpectedly reached the second round of the presidential election against Jacques Chirac in 2002.
At the head of the party, his daughter, Marine Le Pen, has succeeded three times to the presidency and transformed the party, now called the National Assembly (RN), into one of the main political forces in the country. To this end, Marine Le Pen resorted to a strategy of “demonization”, which included repudiating her father’s anti-Semitic speech and even expelling her from the party.
