Jean-Marie Le Pen has died
Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead. My mother taught me to only say good things of the dead, so I'll say it's a good thing he's dead.
Press release from the Élysée
Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder and first president of the National Front, passed away on January 7 at the age of 96.
Born in 1928, Jean-Marie Le Pen served as a Member of Parliament three times, was a five-time presidential candidate, a seven-time Member of the European Parliament, a municipal councilor for the 20th arrondissement of Paris, and a regional councilor for Île-de-France and later Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Founder of the National Front in 1972, its president until 2011, and subsequently honorary president from 2011 to 2018, he reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election, where he secured 17.8% of the vote. A historic figure of the far-right, he played a role in the public life of our country for nearly seventy years, a legacy now left to the judgment of history.
The President of the Republic extends his condolences to his family and loved ones.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. That the Elysée puts out a nicer statement than he deserves after his death is really a choice...
Edited to remove an extra word
You might be reading too little into the elysee's statement.
Here's some other examples of their previous statements:
The cold and terse tone is a choice. The wording is incredibly careful as well; "a legacy now left to the judgment of history" is famously and very specifically the wording they used for the death of Philippe Petain in 1951 (a nazi collaborator).
The wording also very specifically reminds the link between the Rassemblement National and the Front National, a link the RN has been trying to hide as much as possible (hence their rebranding).
I suppose that's fair, but given the current climate in the country (and Europe in general), and seeing what's happened in other countries where the far right has taken over, I'm a bit tired of people like Le Pen being given any airtime. It's not a requirement to make this statement or give him the time of day, and I personally don't think it's a good thing. It gives people like him more legitimacy than they deserve.
It is kind of a requirement, yes. Anybody who would have gotten to a second round in presidential elections would be acknowledged as such. And applying different rules to people because they're disliked is a "road to hell" type thing.
At some point we as a society need to decide whether we want our representatives to take the high road, or the trump road. "I fart in your general direction" is the attitude i want my fellow french citizens to apply to this nazi's death, but it doesn't mean that's the attitude i want my /government/ to adopt.
It's worth mentioning that "ignoring the problem" is something we did all the way from 2002 until 2017. I don't think it's the correct attitude, and all it did was give the opportunity for resentment to grow.
This is an interesting distinction I don’t see often.
This reads as a matter of opinion and not fact given that everyone who's been in the second round since De Gaulle either was president, or isn't yet dead.
Taking the high road hasn't done us any favours, and believe me I'd like to be proven wrong. I'm not exactly saying Macron should piss on his grave, but listing his achievements (and I have read the French version) is taking it too far to me. Had they made a short statement mentioning the man died that would have been more than enough (and I'm still not convinced that would even be necessary), but they went further than that.
Yes, the French government has done a poor job of paying attention to and addressing the grievances of its population, leading to the rise of the far right. However, mainstream French media has categorically not been ignoring the Le Pens and their ilk, and have been giving them a platform for their ideas for decades (and I'm talking big platforms like Le Monde, France 2, France Inter, RTL, etc). They've had plenty of attention and I don't like the government giving them more. I stand by the opinion that this gives the man more legitimacy than he deserves. An obituary by the Elysée does nothing to address the population's anger, it just reads like yet another misguided move to appease supporters of the far right.
By the way, I'm also realizing that what I used to translate made the original press release look much more emotional than it really is. In french, the tone really is as close as you can get to "He was a man. He lived a life. Now he no longer lives it. Condolences to the family."
I came across cheering people in France on multiple lives and was confused until I saw the news.
So, this post got me thinking about celebrating the death of monsters...along with a graffiti I saw on Fedi of "Live, Laugh, Luigi." The first impulse thought was: Celebrate the death of those whom would benefit from yours.
The second, slightly more nuanced thought: A funeral is the epilogue to the story of your life. A ceremony of celebration of it by those whom you have affected. If your legacy is leaving behind a trail of suffering and hatred, it is no wonder that people rejoice at the end of that, so the healing can begin. Very few people are sad when the good guys win at the end of the story.
Lizzie's in a Box was being sung across Ireland/IrishTok