“Over the course of six decades of active political combat, he proved to be a visionary, forcing into the public debate the major issues that structure political life today, such as demographics and its corollary immigration, globalization and France’s decline, national sovereignty and the risk of dilution in the European Union,” the party he founded, now known as the National Rally, said in a glowing statement that largely glossed over controversies during Le Pen’s life.
“For the National Rally, he will be remembered as the man who, in the storms, held the flickering flame of the French nation in his hands,” the statement read.
Figures from across the political spectrum weighed in, with those on the left condemning what Le Pen stood for as his allies on the far right praised his legacy. Centrists struck a neutral tone, in some cases just effectively acknowledging his existence.
“He played a role in the public life of our country for almost seventy years, which is now a matter for history to judge,” the ´Élysée palace said in a statement.
The current head of the far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, said on X that Le Pen “always served France, its identity and its sovereignty.” Bardella had on previous occasions sought to distance himself from the elder Le Pen, whose ultranationalist, anti-immigrant, elite-bashing made him a pariah in 1980s France.
Le Pen was, arguably, two or three decades ahead of his time. He prefigured the divisive populist politics of President Donald Trump in the United States, Nigel Farage and Britain’s other prominent Brexit campaigner and Éric Zemmour in his own country.
pl_facebook_pixel_args = [];
pl_facebook_pixel_args.userAgent = navigator.userAgent;
pl_facebook_pixel_args.language = navigator.language;
if ( document.referrer.indexOf( document.domain ) < 0 ) {
pl_facebook_pixel_args.referrer = document.referrer;
}
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq( 'consent', 'revoke' );
fbq( 'init', "394368290733607" );
fbq( 'track', 'PageView', pl_facebook_pixel_args );
if ( typeof window.__tcfapi !== 'undefined' ) {
window.__tcfapi( 'addEventListener', 2, function( tcData, listenerSuccess ) {
if ( listenerSuccess ) {
if ( tcData.eventStatus === 'useractioncomplete' || tcData.eventStatus === 'tcloaded' ) {
__tcfapi( 'getCustomVendorConsents', 2, function( vendorConsents, success ) {
if ( ! vendorConsents.hasOwnProperty( 'consentedPurposes' ) ) {
return;
}
const consents = vendorConsents.consentedPurposes.filter(
function( vendorConsents ) {
return 'Create profiles for personalised advertising' === vendorConsents.name;
}
);
if ( consents.length === 1 ) {
fbq( 'consent', 'grant' );
}
} );
}
}
});
}
