The former president of the National Front (now National Rally) Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized after a "slight heart attack" on Saturday, we learned from his entourage, confirming information from Le Point.
"Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized in a public establishment in the Paris region. His family and loved ones are worried but calm," said his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique, reporting that Mr. Le Pen, a historical figure of the extreme French right, is "aware" and surrounded.
The 94-year-old former political leader has been hospitalized several times in recent years. In February 2022, Marine Le Pen's father was hospitalized following a mild form of stroke.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was five times a candidate for the Elysée Palace, managing to reach the second round in 2002, only to be beaten by Jacques Chirac with an overwhelming score.
Born June 20, 1928 in La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan) and graduated in law, he was a legionnaire in Indochina (1953) and Algeria (1957).
Elected for the first time in 1956 to the National Assembly on a Poujadist list, he became at the age of 27 the youngest of the Palais Bourbon.
Defeated in the legislative elections of 1962, he experienced a long crossing of the desert.
He was appointed in 1972 at the head of a new party which brought together neo-fascists: the National Front. And develops his favorite theme: "a million unemployed is a million immigrants too many", accusing them of taking advantage of social assistance to the detriment of the French.
In 1984, he became a Member of the European Parliament, then in the legislative elections of 1986, won a seat in the National Assembly.
He was dismissed in April 2000 from the mandate of regional councilor of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, after his sentence to one year of ineligibility for violence against a socialist candidate for the legislative elections of 1997, one of his many legal disputes.
At the end of 1998, the departure of Bruno Mégret caused the split in the FN, but despite the loss of part of his electorate, Mr. Le Pen succeeded in imposing the FN as the main far-right movement.
The "Menhir" has never confessed any regret for its slippages, whether controlled or not, often repeated, which have earned it several legal convictions: from the gas chambers "point of detail in the story", to "inequality races" (1996), via the "not particularly inhumane" German Occupation (2005).
In the Parliament of Strasbourg, where he was elected several times, he will try, he says, "to defend France against Europe, against the abuses of the European Union".
The youngest of her three daughters, Marine, inherited the party in 2011. She has long said "assume the entire inheritance", but she is finally exceeded by this father who has become embarrassing to "de-demonize" the party. Marine Le Pen ended up expelling her father in 2015 after repeated polemical remarks on the Holocaust.
After the historic breakthrough of the RN in the legislative elections last June, with 89 seats, he deplored "a certain media absence" of the RN deputies led by his daughter, calling on them to "react" by being "aggressive towards power" .
04/16/2023 01:15:37 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
