The longtime leader of the far right in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is in hospital with heart problems. The 94-year-old father of France’s current right-wing populist leader Marine Le Pen suffered a “mild heart attack” on Saturday night. Doctors assess Le Pen’s health as “serious”.
His family and friends are with him in the hospital and “concerned but calm,” said Lorrain de Saint Affrique, Le Pen’s adviser. The 94-year-old suddenly complained of severe exhaustion on Saturday at his home in the town of Rueil-Malmaison, west of Paris, the weekly magazine “Le Point” wrote.
Politic base
Despite his advanced age and the fact that he retired from active politics years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen still enjoys influence on the French right. He co-founded the National Front in 1972 and led it for nearly four decades. During this time, he transformed the FN from a right-wing splinter group into a serious political force, using pithy provocations to create anti-immigrant sentiment. He ran for president of France five times. In 2002 he made it to the second round of the presidential election against the incumbent Jacques Chirac, which caused shock waves.
Quarrel with daughter
His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from him in 2011 and has since been trying to make the party eligible for election through a more moderate approach to center-right and centre-left voters. The right-wing populist broke politically with her father after he repeatedly thwarted her strategy. The FN finally ruled out Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 after he repeatedly downplayed the Nazi murder of Jews in gas chambers as a “history detail” of World War II.
He fought back bitterly, accusing his daughter of “treason” and fighting a long-standing public feud with her. In court, he claimed that he was initially allowed to keep the title of honorary president. However, this was removed in 2018. A year after losing the 2017 presidential election, Marine Le Pen had the party renamed Rassemblement National.
Source: Krone
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