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Hundreds of mourners flocked to the venerable Val-de-Grâce church in Paris on Thursday to pay their last respects to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the architect of the French far-right movement known for his racist and antisemitic actions.
A speaker at the requiem Mass praised Mr Le Pen, saying he “saw, before anyone else, the danger facing France today”. A choir sang a song of a French soldier asking God for “strength to fight”. The people repeated the words of the prayer to Joan of Arc, along with her request that “the people of France will always be a Christian people”.
But since Mr Le Pen died on January 7 at the age of 96, the question of how much respect he deserves in death has ignited a heated debate in France, given the history Mr. Le Pen on fear-mongering, downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust, and claiming that Germany’s occupation of France was not “in the most indecent way”.
The question of his legacy is a reflection of a wider and unresolved dispute about the party Mr Le Pen founded in 1972, the National Rally. In recent years, the party has moved from the fringes to the center of French politics and currently holds the most seats in the National Assembly.
Despite their recent success, National Rally leaders regularly complain that they are still denied “respect” by fellow lawmakers, shut out of policy debates and removed from leadership positions.
His neighbors may be disappointed. In a televised interview earlier this week, François Rebsamen, regional planning minister and a leftist in the current centre-right government, declared: “Respect all political forces I, except for the National Rally.”
Gaining honors has been part of the National Rally agenda in recent years. Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over the leadership of the party in 2011, ousting Mr. Le Pen in 2015. Three years later, the party changed its name (called the National Front) to a fraction. in an effort to soften his image, distance himself from his father, and move to a more open space.
The event helped. Millions of voters were drawn to his anti-immigrant, law-and-order, and public-economic stances. Her supporters hope that either Ms. Le Pen or her 29-year-old daughter, Jordan Bardella, could eventually win the presidency.
But some memories last. On the night of Mr Le Pen’s death, French television showed crowds of people in Paris’ Place de la République, smiling and popping bottles of champagne. Such street parties broke out in Lyon, Marseille, and elsewhere.
“Foul racism is dead,” read a sign held by a protester. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Members of the current centre-right government have criticized the militants’ show.
“Nothing, nothing, justifies the dance of the dead,” the country’s conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, said in a social media post. .
Mr Le Pen’s death comes amid deep political turmoil in France. The economy is leading, the public debt is growing, and the National Assembly, the powerful national assembly, has been weakened by three divisions between the left, the center and the extreme right.
Last month, the government of former centre-right prime minister Michel Barnier collapsed after just three months, as members of the Senate could not agree on a budget, then punished Barnier for trying to force one. The National Rally has joined the left in bringing down Mr. Barnier’s government through a vote of no confidence. One of the main reasons they did this was disrespect.
Mr. Barnier’s centrist replacement, François Bayrou, is barely hanging on to a government that could change any day.
The National Rally has not yet said what will happen next. But if members decide to vote against the government again, it could kill Mr Bayrou’s hopes of staying in office.
Having a public Mass for their past image can hurt the party in the short term. But Jean-Yves Camus, a far-right scholar at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, said the party had “no choice but to organize a public tribute” if considering Mr. Le Pen’s stature and the history of the movement. “In a sense, the party is a prisoner of its own history.”
Giorgios Samaras, an assistant professor of public policy at King’s College London, said the party would be able to assert a “newer, more balanced brand without constant reminders of Jean-Marie’s stance.” .”
The service focused on the love of Mr. France’s Le Pen, and the militant spirit he brought to politics and war itself, while serving in the French army in Indochina and Algeria.
“Yes, Mr. Le Pen, you were stubborn, you had a bad reputation, but you had the spirit of a musketeer, a soldier serving France,” said Christophe Kowalczyk, a military priest who was in charge of the ceremony, and expressed his opinion. to the tune of an old soldier’s song.
After the mass, the mourners left the church and the square opposite it. They went down the narrow Rue Saint-Jacques, holding their program of service and shaking hands with their friends.
A number of college residences covered them. And from the window came a familiar war cry from the European left: “We are all anti-fascists!” — We are all anti-fascists.
