 "Why was Jean-Marie Le Pen such a controversial figure in France?")
Jean-Marie Le Pen has died at age 96.
Jean-Marie, the founder of the far-right National Front, was for decades seen as among the most controversial figures in France.
His family in a statement said he died “surrounded by loved ones” at a healthcare facility on Tuesday.
But what do we know about Jean-Marie? And why was he such a divisive figure in France?
Let’s take a closer look:
Early years, army life
Jean-Marie was born in the port of La Trinite-sur-Mer on June 20, 1928.
His father was fisherman, while his mother was a seamstress.
Tragedy struck early in Jean-Marie’s life.
As per BBC, Jean-Marie was only 14 when his father died.
Out sailing, his father’s boat hit a mine.
Jean-Marie, as a result of his father’s death, was entitled to support from the state.
At 16, he attempted to join the French Resistance.
However, the resistance turned him down.
Jean-Marie wrote in his autobiography that he earned a “magisterial slap” from his mother was his first “war decoration.”
This after he admitted to her that he had attempted to enlist.
But that didn’t dissuade him from enlisting.
Jean-Marie served in two wars – the First Indochina War (1946-1954) in Vietnam and in Algeria (1954-1962).
By 1954, he’d joined the French foreign legion.
According to BBC, he worked as an intelligence officer in Algeria.
In the middle of the stint, Jean-Marie returned to France and made his debut in politics.
In 1956, he was voted into France’s Parliament.
At 27, he was the country’s youngest MP.
But that didn’t end his military ambitions.
Jean-Marie was part of the French-British military expedition to seize the Suez Canal. He also continued to fight in the Algerian war.
It was this conflict that left the greatest impact on Jean-Marie.
As in Vietnam, he was infuriated to see France losing its colonial possessions, accusing World War II hero Charles de Gaulle of “helping make France small” by granting Algeria its independence.
As per BBC, Jean-Marie was alleged to have participated in the torture of Algerian prisoners during the conflict.
The Guardian quoted Jean Marie telling the newspaper Combat in 1962, “I’ve nothing to hide. We tortured because it had to be done. When you’ve caught someone who’s just planted 20 bombs that could explode from one minute to the next and he doesn’t want to talk, you have to use exceptional methods to make him do so.”
Jean-Marie would later deny the charge.
He would even sue French newspapers Le Canard enchaîné and Libération over decades later – albeit unsuccessfully.
As per BBC, Jean-Marie by 1962 had lost his political seat in the National Assembly.
He caused controversy in 1965 by defending the war-time government that collaborated with the Nazis.
“Was General de Gaulle more brave than Marshal Pétain in the occupied zone? This isn’t sure. It was much easier to resist in London than to resist in France,” Jean-Marie said.
Rise in politics
In 1972, he co-founded the National Front (FN), billed as a “national, social and popular” party, and two years later made his first run for president.
The early years were tumultuous, with his unabashed racism and anti-Semitism striking a raw nerve in a country still haunted by the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II.
In 1976, a bomb ripped through the Paris apartment building where he lived with his wife Pierrette and three daughters, slightly injuring six people but sparing the Le Pens.
Eight years later, Pierrette walked out of the marriage, resurfacing shortly afterwards to pose nearly nude for Playboy magazine in a French maid’s outfit – her pointed answer to her husband’s advice to get a job as a cleaner.
As per BBC, Jean-Marie had little political success at first.
In 1974, his bid for president garnered under 1 per cent of the vote.
In 1981, he couldn’t even manage to obtain enough signatures to be nominated.
However, the FN’s first big electoral breakthrough came in the mid-1980s, when the party won 35 seats in parliament.
His party gained ground in the south of France – which had witnessed a large number of North African immigrants.
By the 1984 European elections, the FN had cracked 10 per cent of the vote.
But its fortunes fluctuated sharply over the next two decades, partly a result of changes in the election system that favoured big parties.
As per The Guardian, Jean-Marie remained a National Front MP till 1988.
By 1991, he’d divorced his first wife Pierrette – with whom he had Marine – for his second wife Jany.
Meanwhile, his message remained unchanged with immigration, the political elite and the European Union all taking a bashing – even though he himself was a member of the European Parliament for over 30 years.
He was a Member of the European Parliament till 2019 and served as regional councillor in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur between 2010 and 2015.
Jean-Marie shocked many in France in 2002 when he made it to the second round of the presidential election, which was won by Jacques Chirac.
Jean-Marie, who seemed more at ease in the role of provocateur than would-be president, appeared as surprised as everyone else by his spectacular breakthrough.
However, Chirac completely dominated Jean-Marie in the second round – taking home over 82 per cent of votes, as per The Guardian.
Years later, he boasted that the rise of the far right around Europe showed his ideas had gone mainstream.
A consummate orator and trained lawyer, he tapped into the anger of right-wingers nostalgic for the empire and French settlers forced to flee the North African country.
The eye patch he wore for many years added to his pugilistic air.
Jean-Marie revealed that he lost his eye driving a tent peg into a hole, and not, as was widely thought, in a brawl.
“While wielding the mallet… a shock in my eye, I have to be hospitalised. Retinal detachment,” Jean-Marie wrote as per BBC.
In 2007, he insisted that Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant who went on to win the presidency, was not French enough to be president.
He repeatedly warned that African immigration would “submerge” the country and claimed the Nazi occupation of the northern half of France in World War II was “not particularly inhumane.”
But it was comments on the Holocaust – which he repeatedly called a “detail” of history – that caused the most shock.
“I do not say that the gas chambers did not exist. I never personally saw them,” Jean-Marie said in 1987 as per BBC. “I have never particularly studied the issue, but I believe they are a point of detail in the history of World War Two.”
The remark earned the politician nicknamed the “Devil of the Republic” and one in a string of convictions for anti-Semitism and racism.
As per The Guardian, Jean-Marie in 2014 claimed that the Ebola virus could provide the answer to bringing the world’s population under control.
In 2016, he was convicted of “provoking hatred and ethnic discrimination” for commenting at a public rally that Roma “rash-inducing” and smelly.
Estrangement from family
Ultimately it was the Holocaust remarks that drove a wedge between him and his daughter Marine.
By 2011, Jean-Marie’s political career was at an end.
His party had not won a single seat in the National Assembly.
That was when his daughter Marine took over.
Marine was desperate to clean up her party’s image and distance it from its founder.
She called the process “de-diabolisation” – “de-demonisation” – in an apparent nod to the legacy left by her father.
Then, in 2015, things escalated dramatically and spectacularly.
According to Le Monde, Jean-Marie repeated his views on the Holocaust during interviews with BFM-TV and in the anti-Semitic magazine Rivarol.
Marine had had enough and removed him from the party.
As per Le Monde, even his picture was taken off on the party website.
Father and daughter no longer spoke.
Marine was quoted as saying that Jean-Marie “wants to harm the Front National.”
He, on the other hand, retorted that he was “ashamed that she bore his name.”
But more was to come.
Marine in 2018 completely abandoned the National Front brand – renaming the party to the National Rally.
“She would have to commit suicide to cut her links with me,” Jean-Marie told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
Another blow was to fall.
His favourite granddaughter, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a telegenic former MP tipped as a future leader of the far right, also distanced herself from the family brand.
She dropped Le Pen from her name on her social media accounts, becoming simply Marion Marechal.
“Marion perhaps thinks that it is too much of weight to carry,” Jean-Marie groused.
As per The Guardian, both Jean-Marie and Marine and other National Rally members have been accused of embezzling money from the European Parliament.
Jean-Marie Le Pen had been excused from attending court on health grounds.
Marine has since taken the National Rally to unimagined heights – not only in national politics but in Europe as well.
The National Rally performed well in both recent domestic and European elections.
But Jean-Marie never apologised.
“It is life! Life is not a smooth tranquil stream,” he told BBC in 2017.
“I am accustomed to adversity. For 60 years I have rowed against the current. Never once have we had the wind at our backs! No indeed, one thing we never got used to was the easy life!”
With inputs from agencies
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