Toggle menu
Toggle personal menu
Not logged in
Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits.

Jean-Marie Le Pen

From ProleWiki, the proletarian encyclopedia
More languages
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Born20 June 1928
La Trinité-sur-Mer, Morbihan, France
Died7 January 2025 (aged 96)
Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Political orientationFrench nationalism
Racism
Antisemitism
Political partyCJ (2016–2025)
FN (1972–2015)


Jean Louis Marie Le Pen (20 June 1928 – 7 January 2025) was a French far-right politician who founded and led the National Front (FN) from 1972 to 2011. He served as honorary president of the party from 2011 to 2015 with his daughter Marine replacing him as leader until being kicked from the party for his racist and antisemitic statements as part of his daughter's attempts to rebrand the party. Le Pen became an MP three times, an MEP seven times and ran for President fives times with the most significant time being when he came second to Jacques Chirac in 2002.

Early life

Jean-Marie Le Pen was born on 20 June 1928 was born in the town of La Trinité-sur-Mer in the department of Morbihan, a part of the region of Brittany. He was an only child, his father was a fisherman and his mother a seamstress. In 1942, during the Second World War, his father died when Le Pen was 14 after a mine was caught in his fishing net. At 16 he attempted to join the military but was rejected. In 1946 he was expelled from his secondary school and moved to Paris to complete his education where he studied law.[1]

He later joined the French Foreign Legion as a paratrooper where he fought on behalf of imperialism in the independence wars of former French colonies in Indochina and Algeria. In Algeria he committed war crimes and tortured detainees claiming it needed to be done and denied further accusations claiming it was leftist plot against him.[1]

Political career

Le Pen created the National Front in 1972 and for the entirety of his political career was the face of the far-right movement in France, promoting racism, islamophobia and antisemitism that will continue after his death. He was convicted and fined several times for convicting crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust. In 2014 he suggested that the Ebola Virus could be a solution to a rising population and two years later he was convicted for stoking ethnic tension for racist statements against Roma people.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kim Willsher (2025-01-07). "Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right leader, dies aged 96" The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2025-01-07.