At 96 years old, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s health would not allow him to attend the trial of the RN parliamentary assistants. But a recent video of the singing menhir in his living room caused confusion this Monday.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is ill and his state of health does not allow him to attend the trial of the National Front, accused of embezzlement of funds from the European Parliament, which began on September 30. Doctors in fact indicated in a report to the courts, a few weeks ago, that the former president of the far-right party now had “no awareness of the aim, meaning and scope of this audience”, not being able to “concentrate for more than a few minutes”.
But while two medical certificates attested to the alteration of his cognitive faculties and his inability to respond to magistrates, Mediapart revealed this Monday a video dated September 28, two days earlier, in which the founder of the National Front sings from his living room in Rueil-Malmaison, in Hauts-de-Seine, alongside members of the neo-Nazi rock group Lyon Return Match. “We did a few songs. Jean-Marie wanted happy songs,” the group’s leader explained on Facebook. An advertisement that his daughter Marine Le Pen would have done well without, who will have to respond to justice in the coming weeks. Contacted by Mediapart, Marine Le Pen declared that she was going to file a complaint for “abuse of weakness” against the musicians whom she accuses of having simply taken advantage of her father’s state of health.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, an elderly man in fragile health
On July 3, the Paris judicial court ruled in his favor and considered that his state of health could exempt him from an appearance in the fall. “Mr. Le Pen can no longer move around and his faculties are considerably impaired,” defended his lawyer during a hearing in March, to plead his case before this decision. Jean-Marie Le Pen was also placed under the legal protection regime, the equivalent of guardianship, at the request of his children.
Last April 2023, the founder of the National Front (which became the National Rally in 2018) was hospitalized in the Paris region due to “cardiac” illness. Since then, his state of health has been worrying. Near the Parisiana friend of the former presidential candidate spoke of “big problems with immediate memory”. “He no longer knows who he saw the day before. He is very tired,” he said.
The former president of the National Front has been hospitalized several times in recent years. He was notably taken to hospital in February 2022 after a mild form of stroke: a transient ischemic attack. However, his state of health was considered good at the time, taking into account this significantly serious illness. The stroke was then very quickly identified. He was hospitalized as a precaution after losing his vision for a minute.
In June 2018, a “dangerous pulmonary complication” led him to be hospitalized for around ten days. In April of the same year, a persistent fever caused him to be hospitalized.
Jean-Marie Le Pen has spoken several times about his failing health and his death in the media. At the microphone of France Inter in 2019, the patriarch of the FN was quite philosophical. “I tell myself that I am making 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. “How long it will last, we don’t know. But I will try to stay true to myself,” confided the man nicknamed the “menhir”. Speaking to Le Parisien, Jean-Marie Le Pen used the same metaphor, considering that at the end of the home stretch, we were going to “have to jump”.
Promoting the second volume of his memoirs in 2019, People’s Tribuneone of his last priorities, Jean-Marie Le Pen saw it “a will”. The former head of the FN dwelled on his multiple health concerns and spoke of “survival devices: glass eye, artificial hips, pacemaker and what not”. “I became Robocop,” he quipped. He also wrote these lines: “Today, I am nothing more than history” or “When I look behind me, I don’t regret much.”
“I only have one eye left and it will get worse and worse.”he amused also from the Parisian. And to open up even more about his health problems, which have accumulated in recent years. “I wake up in the morning exhausted. I have a hard time getting off the ground, I count to ten to get up.” The patriarch mentioned thus difficulty moving without his cane, but assured so, mockingly :si “the bottom doesn’t work very well, the top much better”.
For almost 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, member of parliament for Paris and European deputy, a position he still holds today.
On April 21, 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen created a surprise by arriving in the second round of the presidential elections. Beaten by Jacques Chirache 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 in clear decline and he does not reach the second round. Numerous controversies surround Jean-Marie Le Pen, in particular concerning his denial of the gas chambers, his delicate past concerning “methods of coercion” during the war or his frequent racist remarks.
It was his daughter Marine Le Pen who succeeded him in 2011 and launched the race for the presidency in 2012. In 2014, Jean-Marie Le Pen began a third term as a European deputy. To everyone’s surprise, the Front National came first in the 2014 European elections in France. In 2015, returning to his controversial comments on the gas chambers, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him at the FN. Jean-Marie Le Pen was finally excluded from the National Front in August 2015.
The heavy legal past of Jean-Marie Le Pen recalled
Withdrawal from political life, Jean-Marie Le Pen left the presidency of the FN in 2011, which was then led by his daughter Marine Le Pen. Their relations deteriorated, while the former politician criticized the RN’s “de-demonization” strategy. He was expelled from the party in 2016, after repeating comments that the gas chambers were a “detail of history”. During his life, Jean-Marie Le Pen was condemned for “apology of war crimes and contestation of crimes against humanity”, but also for “provocation to hatred, discrimination and racial violence”. As a reminder, Jean-Marie Le Pen also practiced torture in Algeria.
In August 2022, he spoke about the RN deputies, believing that they were not present enough in the media. He called on them to “react” and to be “more aggressive towards power”, indicates Le Figaro. He said he was not sure if his daughter was “voluntary”. “Eighty-nine deputies in the National Assembly is not yet power, but almost,” he said after the results of the legislative elections, during which the RN made an electoral breakthrough.
Jean-Marie Le Pen: key dates
- June 20, 1928: Birth of Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right politician.
- Jean-Marie le Pen was born on June 20, 1928 in Trinité-sur-Mer. Entering political life very early, as a Poujadist deputy at the age of 27, he became president of the National Front in 1972. He did not leave this place before 2011. His far-right nationalist party focuses its ideas in particular on a policy to fight against immigration. His daughter Marine le Pen took over the party presidency in 2011.
- October 5, 1972: Creation of the FN
- Jean-Marie le Pen, former youngest deputy in France in 1956, founded a far-right party called: Front National. He is supported by the “New Order” movement, of which he was campaign director for the 1965 presidential elections, supporting the former secretary of state of Vichy governmentTixier-Vignancour. “Odre Nouveau” will be dissolved in 1973 by the Council of Ministers. Remaining unnoticed at its creation, the FN asserted 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 the story”
- During the RTL Le Monde Grand Jury, the president of the National Front asserts that the gas chambers are only a “detailed point in the history of the Second World War”. By putting Nazi crimes into perspective, Jean-Marie Le Pen raises an outcry.
- April 21, 2002: Jean-Marie Le Pen enters the second round of the presidential election
- The National Front candidate obtained 16.86% of the votes, 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 ultimately be largely re-elected in the second round with 82.21% of the vote.