Jean-Marie Le Pen was divisive and difficult – but he changed the shape of French politics
Jean-Marie Le Pen was variously loved and loathed – but he changed the shape of modern French politics.
His youth was shaped by war and he then lived a life of constant battles.
Le Pen’s political career, which was a very long one, was all about belligerence, anger, regret and scapegoats. In his world, everything that had gone wrong could be blamed on someone else.
French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died
Mostly, his targets were either migrants or Muslims, or ideally migrants who were also Muslims. But he also berated bureaucrats, gay people and the Arab world in general.
He was convicted of inciting discrimination, downplayed the Holocaust as merely “a detail”, assaulted a fellow MP in the European Parliament and was eventually expelled from his own party – then led by his own daughter – for being an unapologetic extremist.
And yet it would be wrong to write Le Pen off as merely an agitator.
He was, instead, a catalyst within French politics – a lightning rod who edged far-right opinions back towards the mainstream. He maintained that France was for the French, a nationalist sentiment that resonates across so many countries to this day.
Le Pen was born in Brittany in 1928, the son of a fisherman and a seamstress. His father, Jean, was killed when his boat was blown up by a German mine during the Second World War but Le Pen went on to enjoy military life and served in Vietnam and Algeria. He bemoaned France’s withdrawal from its colonies and, as he saw it, the consequent loss of power and prestige.
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France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen dies
On his return to France, Le Pen moved into right-wing politics. He helped to form the National Front in 1972, uniting a disparate group of supporters. Emboldened, Le Pen ran for president in 1974, but ended up with less than 1% of the vote.
He had, however, started the process of establishing himself as a profoundly divisive figure.
In 1976, his apartment was bombed, blowing out a side of the building. Nobody was killed and the perpetrators were never caught.
But the violence of the attack against him seemed to energise Le Pen. And the following year, a wealthy supporter left him a new home – a mansion to the west of Paris built on the orders of Napoleon III. Le Pen, along with his three daughters – Marie-Caroline, Yann and Marine – all lived there.
Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine Le Pen in 2012. Pic: Reuters
Their mother, Pierrette, separated from Le Pen because of his extreme views. He refused to pay alimony saying that “if she wants money, she can clean”. Instead, she accepted the offer to pose for semi-naked photos in Playboy magazine, wearing a maid’s outfit and pretending to clean. The magazine sold around 250,000 more copies than normal.
That crushing electoral defeat did not dissuade Le Pen. Instead, it was to be merely the first of five attempts to win the presidency. None would be successful but on one extraordinary occasion, in 2002, he came second in the first round of popular voting, with the backing of 4.8m voters.
It was a result that pushed Le Pen into a run-off against the sitting president, Jacques Chirac. Fearful of Le Pen’s extremism, Mr Chirac won backing from across the political spectrum and emerged with the biggest landslide in France’s modern history – 82% for him, 18% for Le Pen. Mr Chirac’s vote rose by nearly 20m votes from the first round – Le Pen’s tally went up by just 700,000.
Jean-Marie Le Pen. Pic: Reuters
The outcome said much about Le Pen. He had enthused many in the far-right with a rhetoric that seemed, at times, anti-establishment, racist, antisemitic, xenophobic and radical, but which also promised to do anything to protect France and the French.
Clearly, there were millions who would support it but, just as clearly, there were many more who would do anything to stop Le Pen, even if that might mean voting for the widely disliked Mr Chirac. “Rather a crook than a racist” was a familiar statement at the time.
The election marked the high-water mark for Le Pen’s career. In the coming years, his support fell. In 2011, he stood down as leader and was succeeded by his daughter Marine Le Pen.
Jean-Marie Le Pen with his daughter Marine. Pic: AP
Le Pen continued as an MEP, but his uncompromising views became ever more at odds with Ms Le Pen’s more emollient approach.
When Le Pen refused to apologise for yet another antisemitic comment, he was suspended, and then expelled, from the party he had founded. A little later, Ms Le Pen was to rename the party the Rassemblement National – the National Rally – to further distance herself from her father’s shadow.
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He started a new far-right party and continued campaigning, but by now he was a spent force. There was only space for one Le Pen, and Ms Le Pen had usurped him.
But her father’s influence lingered on. “His impact is still very great today,” said Dr Benjamin Biard, a political analyst specialising in the far right.
“It’s not just Jean-Marie Le Pen. There is the impact of Marine Le Pen who also changed the party, mainly in its structure, its symbols and the way it communicates. For everything else, it has remained generally faithful to the ideals of the National Front as Jean-Marie Le Pen designed it when the party was first founded.
“His ability, playing in his charisma and his way of communicating, has been very inspirational for other political organisations in other countries, particularly in Europe.”
Le Pen brought raw, unapologetic opinions that were, for many, unpalatable, offensive, divisive and sometimes even illegal, but which also helped to remould French politics.
He enjoyed the spotlight, spoke with passion, and enjoyed smiling, performing and shaking hands while the storm swirled around him. Le Pen was divisive and difficult, but he was also impossible to ignore.
Donald Trump said he will ask the Justice Department to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged ties to former US president Bill Clinton and other prominent Democrats.
The call from the US president comes as fresh questions about Mr Trump’s own relationship with the paedophile financier were raised as his name came up multiple times when 20,000 pages were released from Epstein’s files earlier this week. Mr Trump has called claims to link him to Epstein as a “hoax”.
Mr Trump said he would ask US Attorney General Pamela Bondi to look into any alleged involvement between former Democrat leader Clinton and paedophile financier Epstein. She later wrote on X that she would assign the investigation to Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Along with Mr Clinton, Mr Trump said he would also ask the Justice Department to investigate former treasury secretary Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder, who is also a prominent Democratic donor.
Former US president Bill Clinton. File Pic: Reuters
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All three men were mentioned in the 20,000 Epstein-related documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. None of them, however, have been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case.
In a lengthy post on his social media platform Truth Social, Mr Trump said: “Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”
Mr Trump also said: “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!
“They all know about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”
What do the named parties say about alleged links to Epstein?
Angel Urena, deputy chief of staff for Mr Clinton, said in 2019: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some time ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York…has never been to Little St James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”
Epstein had been a JPMorgan client from 1998 until 2013.
“The firm deeply regrets any association with this man, and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he was using the bank in any way to commit his heinous crimes,” JPMorgan said in a statement in September 2023.
Summers, former Harvard University president, recently issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life.”
“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” the statement said.
Similarly, Mr Hoffman told Axios in 2019 he regretted his relationship with Epstein.
“My few interactions with Jeffrey Epstein came at the request of Joi Ito, for the purposes of fundraising for the MIT Media Lab.
“Prior to these interactions, I was told by Joi that Epstein had cleared the MIT vetting process, which was the basis for my participation.
“My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015. Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice. For this, I am deeply regretful.”
A 47-year-old New Jersey man died last year from alpha-gal syndrome, a red meat allergy caused by a tick bite.
His death is believed to be the first documented death from a meat allergy triggered by tick bites.
Symptoms for alpha-gal syndrome – which in 2011 was first linked to bites from the Lone Star tick – can include hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, severe stomach pain, difficulty breathing, dizziness and swelling of the lips, throat, tongue or eyelids.
The reaction to the foods that cause the symptoms can be delayed, and usually present themselves a few hours later, unlike some other food allergies, which occur soon after eating.
The new research follows the case of a healthy airline pilot who went camping in 2024 with his wife and children. They had steak for supper. This was unusual, as he rarely ate meat.
He woke at 2am with violent pain in his abdomen, vomiting and diarrhoea.
The next day he ate breakfast and went on a five-mile walk.
A fortnight later, back in New Jersey, he went to a barbecue, where he ate a hamburger. About four hours later, he grew ill. Shortly afterwards, his son found him on the bathroom floor unconscious.
Am operating theatre. File pic by iStock
His son called paramedics, and he was admitted to hospital, but the man was announced dead later that night.
Blood tests conducted by researchers revealed evidence of the alpha-gal syndrome. Proof that it came from a Lone Star tick is inconclusive.
The researchers made the link after a statement from the man’s wife, who had said he had 12 or 13 “chigger” bites near his ankles earlier in the summer.
But the conclusion makes sense, as people in eastern America sometimes mistake the bites from mites with those from larval ticks.
More than 100,000 people in the U.S. have become allergic to red meat since 2010 because of the syndrome, according to one estimate.
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Dr Scott Commins, a leading alpha-gal syndrome researcher at the University of North Carolina, called his death an “unmitigated tragedy”.
“Totally unnecessary and with increased awareness, this won’t happen again,” he said in an email.
Three Chinese astronauts have successfully returned to Earth from their nation’s space station after their capsule was damaged.
The team deployed a red and white striped parachute as they descended, before landing at a remote site in the Gobi Desert in Asia on Friday.
The astronauts – Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie – had been due to return on 5 November to end their six-month rotation at the Tiangong space station.
However, their journey back was delayed by nine days because the Shenzhou-20 return capsule they were due to travel in was found to have tiny cracks.
These were most likely caused by the impact of space debris hitting the craft, China’s space agency said.
There are millions of pieces of mostly tiny particles that circle the Earth at speeds faster than a bullet.
They can come from launches and collisions and pose a risk to satellites, space stations and the astronauts who operate outside them.
With the Shenzhou-20 out of action, the crew – who travelled to the space station in April – used a Shenzhou-21 craft instead, which had brought a three-person replacement crew to the station.
The launch of the Shenzhou-21 craft from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province, China, on 31 October. Pic: Kyodo via AP
The Chinese space agency said the stranded taikonauts – the Chinese word for astronauts – had remained in good condition throughout.
The first module of the Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace”, was launched by the Chinese state in 2021.
It is smaller than the International Space Station, from which Beijing is blocked, due to US national security concerns.
China’s space programme has developed steadily since 2003.
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In a long term plan to advance its orbital capabilities, China plans to land a person on the moon by 2030 and has already explored Mars with a robotic rover.
The Asian nation’s latest space mission brought four mice to study how weightlessness and confinement would affect them.
An engineer from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the study will help master key technologies for breeding and monitoring small mammals in space.
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