Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized after a “slight heart attack” on Saturday, AFP confirmed after information from Le Point. At the age of 94, the founder of the FN suffered a “slight heart attack”…
Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized on Saturday after a “slight heart attack” according to information from AFP, confirming an article from Le Point. The former president of the National Front (now National Rally) was admitted “in a public establishment in the Paris region. His family and relatives are worried but calm,” said his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique. Jean-Marie Le Pen was “conscious” and surrounded yesterday according to the latest information on his health.
The 94-year-old former political leader has been hospitalized several times in recent years. In February 2022, the father of Marine Le Pen had notably been taken to the hospital following a mild form of stroke.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized on February 2, 2022, and quickly taken care of in an establishment in Île-de-France after a stroke. However, his state of health was considered good at the time, given this significant illness. The stroke was then very quickly identified. Hospitalized on a Wednesday, Jean-Marie Le Pen had had “vision problems” the previous Monday, “during a dinner”. Warning signs that had alerted his relatives and had led to rapid care for the nonagenarian.
With AFP, his adviser Lorrain de Saint Affrique, already indicated at the time that “the examinations” did not lead to “any imminent threat”. Jean-Marie Le Pen had then been “hospitalized as a precaution, and not for observation”, assured those around him.
Jean-Marie Le Pen spoke about his failing health and his death several times in the media. At the microphone of France Inter in 2019, the patriarch of the FN had been quite philosophical. “I tell myself that I am doing the home stretch and, therefore, I am led for the first time in my life to think about my age”, assured the former sulphurous political leader. “It will last what it will last, we don’t know. But I will try to stay true to myself”, still confided the one nicknamed the “menhir”. With the Parisian, Jean-Marie Le Pen used the same metaphor, considering that at the end of the last straight line, it was going to “have to jump”.
Promoting the second volume of his memoirs in 2019, “Tribun du peuple”, one of his last priorities, Jean-Marie Le Pen saw it as “a testament”. The former boss of the FN stopped there on his multiple health concerns and evoked “survival devices: glass eye, artificial hips, pacemaker and whatever else”. “I became Robocop,” he quipped. He also wrote these lines: “Today, I am only history” or “When I look behind me, I do not regret much”.
“I only have one eye left and it will be less and less good”, he also had fun with the Parisian. And to indulge even more on his health problems, which have accumulated in recent years. “I wake up in the morning exhausted. I have a terrible time taking off, I count to ten to get up”. The patriarch thus mentioned difficulties in moving around without his cane, but then assured, mockingly: if “the bottom does not work very well, the top much better”.
For nearly forty years, Jean-Marie Le Pen was the president of the National Front, from 1972, when the party was created, to 2011 when he gave way to his daughter Marine Le Pen. He has nevertheless been its honorary president since January 2011. His political career began in 1956 when he was elected deputy. He successively obtained the mandate of municipal councilor of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, regional councilor of Ile-de-France, deputy of Paris and European deputy, a position he still holds today.
On April 21, 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen created a surprise when he arrived in the second round of the presidential elections. Defeated by Jacques Chirac, he decides to try his luck again by finding allies for the future campaign. In 2007, Jean-Marie Le Pen officially became the oldest French candidate for a presidential election. But his score is down sharply and he does not reach the second round. Many controversies surround Jean-Marie Le Pen, in particular concerning his negationism of the gas chambers, his delicate past concerning “methods of constraint” during the war or his frequent racist remarks.
His daughter Marine Le Pen succeeded him in 2011 and entered the presidential race in 2012. In 2014, Jean-Marie Le Pen began a third term as MEP. To everyone’s surprise, the Front National came out on top in the 2014 European elections in France. In 2015, returning to his controversial remarks on the gas chambers, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him at the FN. Jean-Marie Le Pen was finally expelled from the Front National in August 2015.
