Jean-Marie Le Pen - founder of French far-right party passes away

Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928-2025) founded the French far-right party in the 1970s and ran for president of France five times. However, it was not until he handed over power to his daughter Marine Le Pen that the far-right really rose to prominence.

Mr. Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928-2025)

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French far-right movement, passed away today (January 7), according to AFP citing an announcement from his family.

Mr. Le Pen had been in a nursing home for the past few weeks, before passing away at 6 p.m. on January 7 (Vietnam time) in the arms of his family, at the age of 97.

Father of the French far-right party

In 1972, Mr. Le Pen founded the National Front (FN) party with the goal of unifying France's far-right movements.

Over the past few decades, Mr. Le Pen has always been the most controversial political figure in France, nicknamed "The Devil of the Republic".

To his supporters, he is charismatic, a champion who never backs down from any challenge and is willing to fight the toughest issues in French politics.

According to critics, he is considered a right-wing bigot and has been convicted many times in court for his extremely extreme comments.

In 2002, Mr. Le Pen shocked the whole of France when he entered the second round of the presidential election. That year, France breathed a sigh of relief when the final victory went to candidate Jacques Chirac.

Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen at an event in France in 2014.

Father-son relationship is broken.

In 2011, he resigned as president of the FN and transferred power to his daughter, Marine Le Pen.

The relationship between father and daughter Le Pen was almost immediately broken. Ms. Marine Le Pen led the FN away from her father's extremely extreme policies, in order to attract more voters.

And this relationship is almost impossible to repair after the FN in May 2015 unanimously decided to suspend the party membership of honorary president Jean-Marie Le Pen, according to Le Monde newspaper.

This is a form of discipline for Mr. Le Pen after some statements that could negatively affect the FN's efforts to improve its image, such as commenting that the gas chambers in World War II were just a "detail" of history.

The above decision shows that the internal crisis of FN has reached its peak, and the relationship between Mr. Le Pen and his daughter - FN President Marine Le Pen - has seriously cracked.

After being suspended from membership, Mr. Le Pen was very angry and thought he was "betrayed" and wanted his daughter to change her last name.

Two years later, Marine Le Pen changed the name of the FN to Rassemblement National.

By last year, RN had won 30 of the 81 seats in the European Parliament reserved for France and became the party with the most seats in the following general election in France, despite not being in power.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/jean-marie-le-pen-nha-sang-lap-dang-cuc-huu-phap-qua-doi-185250107205809767.htm