The president of the National Front died at the age of 96. For several years, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s health had deteriorated. The cause of his death was linked to a respiratory problem.
Jean-Marie Le Pen died at the age of 96 this Tuesday, January 7, his family announced to AFP, indicating that he had been “called back to God this Tuesday at 12 p.m.”. For more than ten years, this controversial figure in the French political landscape had gradually withdrawn from national political life, pushed by the exit after Marine Le Pen took power at the head of the National Front.
Furthermore, the last five years, marked by various health problems for the former leader of the far-right party, have favored this gradual withdrawal. Already in March 2022, Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized after having a “mild form of stroke”. Earlier, he had been very weakened by the flu and showed a general state of fatigue.
A respiratory cause cited for the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen
After a “slight heart attack” in 2023, the father of Marine Le Pen, five times candidate for the Elysée, was admitted to hospital in November 2024 to carry out a battery of tests according to information communicated by his entourage to France Televisions. The hospitalization of the 96-year-old man, in a hospital in western Paris, was decided “as a precaution“after poor analysis results. According to several of his relatives, since this cardiac accident, his general health has declined significantly over time and Jean-Marie Le Pen had changed establishments several times.
According to Le Parisien, Jean-Marie Le Pen was in recent weeks in a palliative care unit in Garches (Hauts-de-Seine), “where his family circle followed one another to accompany him, his daughters or even his former wife Pierrette “. This is where he died. The patriarch’s condition had suddenly deteriorated further the day before his death, a relative confided to the newspaper, who mentioned a pulmonary embolism as the cause of death at the end of the afternoon. “The day before yesterday he was still doing pretty well. Then he suddenly lost his breathing, following pulmonary edema,” we could read this evening.
Jean-Marie Le Pen unable to attend the RN trial
Far from the routine check initially outlined, this recent hospitalization of Jean-Marie Le Pen was therefore the consequence of a “profound deterioration” in his physical and psychological state, noted after a medical assessment. These complications also prevented the finalist in the 2002 presidential election from “being present” or “preparing his defense” during the affair involving the assistants of RN MEPs. His case was ultimately “disjoined” despite the proceedings against him.
Indeed, Jean-Marie Le Pen had been placed, a few months earlier, “under legal protection regime”, a civil provision which is similar to guardianship according to his lawyer François Wagner. “This civil provision was activated at the request of the family by the local court of Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), after a medical expertise establishing the incapacity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, explains The World. She made her three daughters her agents, allowing them to carry out various acts in their father’s name, alone or in concert.