I once asked Jean-Marie Le Pen, during 1992 regional elections, about the National Front’s (FN) slogan Quand nous arriverons, ils partiront, which roughly translates as “When we get in, they’ll get out”. Who, I asked Le Pen, did he mean by “they”? He would not answer directly but drew complicit laughter from supporters by saying: “Everyone here but you knows what that means.”
The extreme-right rabble rouser may finally be dead at 96 after a long, incendiary political career, but those nationalist anti-immigration ideas are alive and kicking in 21st-century France.
Indeed, Le Pen managed to divide the nation one last time in death, as he had in life. Leftwing politicians voiced outrage at what they branded an unacceptable tribute by the new centrist prime minister, François Bayrou, who said in a statement on X that whatever their differences, Le Pen was a major figure in French political life and that “you knew when you fought against him what a fighter he was”.
Ironically, his demise may clear the stage for his daughter, Marine Le Pen, to ascend to the French presidency, having supposedly cleansed the party he created – and from which she expelled him in 2015 – of its racist baggage. Opinion polls suggest she would romp to victory against all comers if an early presidential election were held now. But it must be said that these are only snapshots of a politically paralysed country in a grumpy mood, not an infallible........