Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized after a “slight heart attack” on Saturday, AFP confirmed after information from Le Point. At the age of 94, the founder of the FN suffered a “slight heart attack”…
Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized on Saturday after a “slight heart attack” according to information from AFP, confirming an article from Le Point. The former president of the National Front (now National Rally) was admitted “in a public establishment in the Paris region. His family and loved ones are worried but calm,” said his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique. Jean-Marie Le Pen was “conscious” and surrounded yesterday according to the latest information on his health.
The 94-year-old former political leader has been hospitalized several times in recent years. In February 2022, the father of Marine Le Pen had notably been taken to the hospital following a mild form of stroke.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized on February 2, 2022, and quickly taken care of in an establishment in Île-de-France after a stroke. However, his state of health was considered good at the time, given this significant illness. The stroke was then very quickly identified. Hospitalized on a Wednesday, Jean-Marie Le Pen had had “vision problems” the previous Monday, “during a dinner”. Warning signs that had alerted his relatives and had led to rapid care for the nonagenarian.
With AFP, his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique, already indicated at the time that “examinations” resulted in “no imminent threat”.
Jean-Marie Le Pen had then been “hospitalized as a precaution, and not for observation”, assured his entourage.
Jean-Marie Le Pen has several times mentioned his failing health and his death in the media. At the microphone of France Inter in 2019, the patriarch of the FN had been quite philosophical. “I tell myself that I am doing the home stretch and, therefore, I am led for the first time in my life to think about my age”, assured the former sulphurous political leader. “It will last what it will last, we don’t know. But I will try to stay true to myself”, still confided the one nicknamed the “menhir”. With the Parisian, Jean-Marie Le Pen used the same metaphor, considering that at the end of the last straight line, it was going to “have to jump”.
Promoting the second volume of his memoirs in 2019, “Tribun du peuple”, one of his last priorities, Jean-Marie Le Pen saw it “a will”. The former boss of the FN stopped there on his multiple health concerns and evoked “survival devices: glass eye, artificial hips, pacemaker and whatever else”. “I became Robocop”, he quipped. He also wrote these lines: “Today, I am only history” or “When I look behind me, I do not regret much”.
“I only have one eye left and it will be less and less good”,was he amusing also with the Parisian. And to indulge even more on his health problems, which have accumulated in recent years. “I wake up in the morning exhausted. I have a terrible time taking off, I count to ten to get up”. The patriarch evoked difficulties in moving around without a cane, but ensured so, jeering :si “bottom doesn’t work very well, top much better”.
For nearly forty years, Jean-Marie Le Pen was the president of the National Front, from 1972, when the party was created, to 2011 when he gave way to his daughter Marine Le Pen. He has nevertheless been its honorary president since January 2011. His political career began in 1956 when he was elected deputy. He successively obtained the mandate of municipal councilor of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, regional councilor of Ile-de-France, deputy of Paris and European deputy, a position he still holds today.
On April 21, 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen created a surprise when he arrived in the second round of the presidential elections. beaten by Jacques Chirac, he decides to try his luck again by finding allies for the future campaign. In 2007, Jean-Marie Le Pen officially became the oldest French candidate for a presidential election. But his score is down sharply and he does not reach the second round. Many controversies surround Jean-Marie Le Pen, in particular concerning his negationism of the gas chambers, his delicate past concerning “methods of constraint” during the war or his frequent racist remarks.
It was his daughter Marine Le Pen who succeeded him in 2011 and entered the race for the presidency in 2012. In 2014, Jean-Marie Le Pen began a third term as MEP. To everyone’s surprise, the Front National came out on top in the 2014 European elections in France. In 2015, returning to his controversial remarks on the gas chambers, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him at the FN. Jean-Marie Le Pen was finally expelled from the Front National in August 2015.
Jean-Marie Le Pen: key dates
- June 20, 1928: Birth of Jean-Marie Le Pen, far-right French politician.
- Jean-Marie le Pen was born on June 20, 1928 in La Trinité-sur-Mer. Entering politics very early, a Poujadist deputy at the age of 27, he became in 1972 the president of the National Front. He did not leave this place before 2011. His far-right nationalist party focuses its ideas in particular on a policy of combating immigration. His daughter Marine le Pen took over the presidency of the party in 2011.
- October 5, 1972: Creation of the FN
- Jean-Marie le Pen, former youngest deputy of France in 1956, founded an extreme right party called: Front National. He is supported by the “New Order” movement, of which he was campaign manager for the 1965 presidential elections, supporting the former secretary of state of Vichy government, Tixier-Vignancour. “Odre Nouveau” will be dissolved in 1973 by the Council of Ministers. Unnoticed at its creation, the FN will assert itself in the French political landscape after the presidential elections of 1981. Jean-Marie Le Pen has been its president since its creation.
- September 13, 1987: Jean-Marie Le Pen releases his “detail of history”
- During the RTL Le Monde Grand Jury, the president of the National Front affirmed that the gas chambers were only “a point of detail in the history of the Second World War”. By relativizing the Nazi crimes, Jean-Marie Le Pen raises an outcry.
- April 21, 2002: Jean-Marie Le Pen reaches the second round of the presidential election
- The Front National candidate obtained 16.86% of the vote, and Jacques Chirac 19.88%. Lionel Jospin, beaten with 16.18% of the vote, immediately announced that he was retiring from political life. This event will trigger numerous demonstrations throughout the country, and Chirac will finally be largely re-elected in the second round with 82.21% of the vote.