During the 2007 presidential election I secured an interview with Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died on January 7.
In the 2002 contest he had stunned France, and indeed much of the western world, by reaching the last two: although Jacques Chirac crushed him by 82% to 18%.
He would not get that far in 2007; his political career had peaked.
The man I met, in the Louis Napoleon mansion at Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) given to him by an admirer, was an obvious old rogue; genial, unquestionably, but mellowed by age and savvy enough to moderate the expression of his opinions.
He had, perhaps unwillingly, grasped reality.
I asked whether he would rather be interviewed in French or in English (I was unsure of his linguistic skills).
He told me, in French, that he spoke only one word of English: ‘Whisky!’
Read more: French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen dies aged 96
The blatant racism and anti-semitism of earlier times was concealed rather than eradicated.
Eight years later he would describe Hitler’s genocide of the Jews as a ‘detail’ of history, not the terrible enormity most others recognise it to be.
Change of leadership
His daughter Marine, who succeeded him as leader of what was then called the Front National in 2011, understood change had to be genuine and profound, not cosmetic.
The old man found himself sent to outer darkness, and in varying degrees spent the rest of his long life there.
The party he founded – now reconstituted as the Rassemblement National (RN) – has changed radically since his day, not least by moderating its attitudes towards ethnic minorities, and by putting in nominal charge Jordan Bardella, who has no genetic connection to the house of Le Pen but, rather, Italian and Algerian blood.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was of a generation that remembered, and revered, Philippe Pétain, head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, and the values (including anti-semitism) that he appeared to embrace.
Such things are an irrelevance to the right in France: a ‘right’ it is probably more accurate now to describe as ‘hard’ rather than ‘far’.
The latter adjective carries a smell of neo-Nazism, a smell all too easily associated with old Le Pen.
However, despite the attempt, through policies and personnel, to remove such smells from her party, Marine Le Pen’s father still leaves a legacy to today’s RN.
It is a movement that will always be associated with him so long as his daughter remains such an influential figure in it.
That may not be just, but it is the case.
Mr Le Pen's enduring influence
And there are certain aspects of the RN’s programme that bear comparison, in intent if not in degree, with what the old man stood for.
It remains fiercely nationalistic even if it has broadened its understanding of what actually constitutes a French citizen – a label it feels can embrace people of colour, Muslims and Jews who sign up to the French way of life.
As a consequence it embraces policies such as serious migration control, intense euro-scepticism and a hard line on crime.
Where it has branched away from the old Front National obsessions is with its concern, common to other French political parties, about the cost of living (pouvoir d’achat).
However, it has not been enough to distance the new incarnation of the party from its origins.
The move to oust Marine Le Pen
The death of Jean-Marie Le Pen may, however, prove to be the final necessary step in removing most toxic aspects of his influence from the movement in which his daughter is so prominent a figure.
Opinion polls continue to suggest that if Marine Le Pen is a candidate in the 2027 presidential election she could well win it.
As I wrote recently, there is an attempt to have her disqualified from standing because of her alleged misuse of EU funds.
Other French politicians have done far worse, but she appears to have been targeted – and even some of her political opponents concede this, and are unhappy about it – because of what she and the RN are perceived, not least by Brussels, to espouse.
That can, to an extent, also be blamed on her father, showing how, despite everything she has sought to do to detoxify the brand, Ms Le Pen has not entirely succeeded.
The type of politics Jean-Marie Le Pen embraced was that of the 1950s paratrooper, with all its sophistication and subtlety, that he was.
It is unlikely ever to come into fashion in France, as his daughter realised when she sought to remove it from her party’s lexicon of policies.
The global political climate
However, the other tide moving in her favour is an international dissatisfaction with the centre and the left, mainly as a reaction to two forces in the western world that have caused widespread discontent: migration that appears to be largely unchecked, and what is called ‘woke’ attitudes that conflict with the way a vast number of people see life.
America has elected Donald Trump again on that basis; Canada and Australia are predicted to elect right of centre governments in the next few months.
If Germany does not, it is likely to have an election in which the hard-right Alternatif für Deutschland increases its support.
Italy already has a hard-right government, as do Hungary and Austria, and Romania is likely to acquire one in the re-runs of its elections in May.
This is the tide that could carry an RN presidential candidate to victory in two years’ time.
History is unlikely to judge Jean- Marie Le Pen particularly kindly.
His ideas were pretty unpalatable when he was active in politics, and it is highly unlikely they will attract a warm fan base in the years and decades to come.
It has only been by undoing much of what he stood for that his daughter has given the successor party the slightest chance of power.
It still remains to be seen whether she can possibly succeed, however much the world shifts in her direction.
Do you agree that the Rassemblement National has become less toxic over the years? Is it in tune with the wider movement in global politics? Let us know at letters@connexionfrance.com
