The former president of the National Front (now National Rally), Jean-Marie Le Pen, was hospitalized after a “slight heart discomfort” on Saturday April 15, we learned from his entourage, confirming information from Point.
“Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized in a public establishment in the Paris region. His family and loved ones are worried but calm,” said his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique, reporting that Mr. Le Pen, a historic figure on the French far right, is “aware” and surrounded. The 94-year-old former political leader has been hospitalized several times in recent years. In particular in February 2022, following a mild form of stroke.
Marine Le Pen’s father was five times a candidate for the Elysee Palace, managing to reach the second round in 2002, only to be beaten by Jacques Chirac with an overwhelming score. Born June 20, 1928 in La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan) and graduated in law, he was a legionnaire in Indochina (1953) and Algeria (1957).
A party bringing together neo-fascists
Elected for the first time in 1956 to the National Assembly on a Poujadist list, he became at the age of 27 the youngest of the Palais Bourbon. Defeated in the legislative elections of 1962, he experienced a long crossing of the desert. He was appointed in 1972 to head a new party that brought together neo-fascists: the National Front. And develops his favorite theme: “one million unemployed is one million immigrants too many”, accusing the latter of taking advantage of social assistance to the detriment of the French.
In 1984, he became a Member of the European Parliament, then in the legislative elections of 1986, won a seat in the National Assembly. He was dismissed in April 2000 from the mandate of regional councilor of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, after his sentence to one year of ineligibility for violence against a socialist candidate for the legislative elections of 1997, one of his many legal disputes.
At the end of 1998, the departure of Bruno Mégret caused the split of the FN, but despite the loss of part of his electorate, Mr. Le Pen succeeded in imposing the FN as the main far-right movement.
Several court convictions
The “Menhir” has never confessed any regret for its slippages, controlled or not, often repeated, which have earned it several legal convictions: from the gas chambers “point of detail in history”, to “inequality of Races” (1996), to the “not particularly inhumane” German Occupation (2005). In the Parliament of Strasbourg, where he was elected several times, he will try, he says, “to defend France against Europe, against the abuses of the European Union”.
The youngest of his three daughters, Marine, inherited the party in 2011. She has long said “to assume the entire inheritance”, but she is finally exceeded by this father who has become embarrassing to “de-demonize” the party. Marine Le Pen ended up expelling her father in 2015 after repeated polemical remarks on the Holocaust.
After the historic breakthrough of the RN in the legislative elections last June, with 89 seats, he deplored “a certain media absence” of the RN deputies led by his daughter, calling on them to “react” by being “aggressive towards power”. .