France Far-Right Party Embraces Jean-Marie Le Pen as a Visionary
Europe|In Death, Jean-Marie Le Pen of France is Embraced by Far-Right Party He Once Led
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/world/europe/france-le-pen-death-national-rally.html
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For years, the far-right National Rally tried to distance itself from Mr. Le Pen’s racist and antisemitic remarks. But after his death Tuesday, it hailed him as a visionary.
For years, France’s main far-right party tried to distance itself from the long trail of inflammatory and derogatory comments made by Jean-Marie Le Pen, its founding president.
His daughter, who took the party reins in 2011, kicked him out. It changed its name, from National Front to National Rally. And the party — long run by Mr. Le Pen, who called Hitler’s gas chambers “a detail” of history — has made a point of decrying antisemitism.
But when Mr. Le Pen died on Tuesday at 96, the party nuzzled him deeply in its fold, its leaders celebrating him as a visionary, an “immense patriot” and a “courageous and talented politician.”
“He will remain the one who, in the storms, held in his hands the small flickering flame of the French Nation,” the National Rally said in a statement, adding that his “will and unwavering tenacity” had shaped the party into an “autonomous, powerful and free” force.
There was nothing in the statement to indicate disagreement with Mr. Le Pen’s views or his caustic remarks. At most, it said he had been “unruly and sometimes turbulent,” often fond of controversy.