France: Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead. The racism he inspired lives on
Jean-Marie Le Pen, a major figure of the French far-right who founded in 1972 the National Front (now the National Rally), died on 7 January at the age of 96. His racist legacy remains alive and well.
It extends beyond the party he founded, reaching a large portion of the French political spectrum, including the current government.
Racism certainly existed before him and has a long history in France, including slavery, persecution of Jews, and colonial domination. But Le Pen managed to reframe the country’s racist political agenda to fit the post-Algerian independence context, postcolonial immigration, and the neoliberal era.
On 17 October 1961, under pouring rain, Paris police violently suppressed a protest organised by the National Liberation Front’s France federation against the curfew imposed on Algerians. Men were arrested, beaten, clubbed, and thrown over bridges in the capital. The death toll was estimated to be as high as 300, with dozens more wounded.
A government spokesperson swiftly announced the official death toll: three. The interior minister spread this state lie in the National Assembly, praising police “discipline”. An interior minister deputy paid tribute to law enforcement. Among those who applauded was one Jean-Marie Le Pen - even then.
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Elected to the National Assembly at 27 for Pierre Poujade’s populist party in 1956 (under the Fourth Republic), and re-elected in 1958 for the National Centre of Independents and Peasants party, Le Pen has lived through all eras.
His oratorical skills, directed towards racist demagoguery, Holocaust denial and anti-communist rhetoric, quickly set him apart.
Breaking through
Having served in the French military in Indochina and Algeria, Le Pen practised and oversaw torture operations. These overseas experiences were decisive in shaping his political and intellectual journey, nurturing a colonial resentment that is central to the French far right, which seemingly never digested the loss of Algeria.
As head of the National Front, a small party he founded in October 1972, Le Pen relied on outrage to promote his formation. His populist style, frequent racist remarks, and “anti-system” posture foreshadowed many modern populist leaders, such as Boris Johnson in the UK, Donald Trump in the US, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Javier Milei in Argentina.
Like them, Le Pen built his legitimacy on discrediting the political class and authorised discourses. He thrived on declinist theses and resentments towards a system presented as weak and corrupt, as well as towards the “politically correct” elites.
The more Le Pen was portrayed as a bogeyman, the more successful he became.
After his first electoral breakthroughs in the 1980s, the Le Pen brand continued to gain popularity. By 2002, to the surprise of all, he made it to the second round of the presidential election. The event was described as a “thunderclap” by the defeated Socialist candidate, summing up the shock that gripped the country.
Two decades later, the presence of a member of the Le Pen dynasty in the presidential second round has become routine, almost expected. The French population seems to have accepted this, and the massive protests between the two rounds in 2002 are long gone. Shock gave way to a form of resignation.
Reactionary politics
For the past 20 years, far-right ideas have taken root in the public debate. It has now become almost customary to speak of a “migration crisis”, “national preference”, or even the “great replacement”.
Issues that once caused scandal are now up for debate. Are you in favour of wearing the Islamic veil in public? Are there too many immigrants in the country?
Although the National Front has never governed France, its key measures have been adopted by various governments. On both the media and political fronts, the country has slid into reactionary politics, with racism becoming a powerful electoral and governmental tool. But by continually moving further towards the far right, successive governments have ended up normalising it.
It was precisely by shifting the focus of social conflict towards a 'values' terrain, where the racial question is central, that Le Pen-ist ideas triumphed
Today, the National Rally has become the arbiter of political debate. Its influence goes far beyond the electoral sphere, showing that it is possible to exert significant influence on public debate and policy without being in government or having a parliamentary group in the National Assembly, as was the case until 2022.
The party has always served as a convenient scarecrow for a political class committed to neoliberal creeds. Former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, for example, used Le Pen throughout the 1980s to weaken the right-wing opposition.
On the pretext that certain issues should not be monopolised by the National Front/National Rally, political parties started to encroach on the far-right’s territory to siphon off its votes. Moral panics around immigration, “Islamo-leftism”, or “woke thinking” are constantly stirred up.
Unsurprisingly, none of these themes focus on major economic policies. It was precisely by shifting the focus of social conflict towards a “values” terrain, where the racial question is central, that Le Pen-ist ideas triumphed and allowed the far right to position itself at the centre of political debate.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead; the racism he inspired lives on.
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