Jean-Marie Le Pen may be gone – but the spirit of the far right continues to haunt Europe

From the Netherlands to Sweden to Hungary, the far right is well represented in parliaments and governments, writes Sean O’Grady – with Le Pen’s particular brand of extremist views continuing to gather traction

The death of Jean-Marie Le Pen should give us a moment to ponder the long march of the French far right – and the rise to power of fascistic parties across Europe.

When we see, for example, pictures of the impeccable social democrat Sir Keir Starmer chatting amiably with Georgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy and ideological heir of Mussolini, we forget just how fantastical such “normality” would have seemed even a few years ago. In France, Le Pen’s rather more astute daughter Marine is bossing President Macron in a way unthinkable even in her father’s heyday.

From the Netherlands to Sweden to Hungary, the far right is well represented either in parliaments or governments. In Germany, the AfD – as right wing as the federal constitution permits – is once again poised to become the principal opposition party after the imminent elections; and is enjoying the now routine patronage of the richest person on the planet, Elon Musk.

Nigel Farage’s dream of eclipsing the Conservatives may be wishful, but he’s succeeded in tilting the Tories – and the entire British political scene – out to the right. And, whatever label you want to pin on Donald Trump, he’s no one’s idea of a progressive.

Le Pen did his bit in this global long march of the far right, a lifetime of destructive service that culminated in a French presidential run-off in 2002. Yet he was, even then, something of a political living fossil. As with all of his counterparts on the political fringes across Europe, he was a crank, an extremist – and someone who reeked of the politics that had led the continent to war, destruction, and half of it being occupied by the Soviet Union.

For a time, he even advocated the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty as monarchs of France and the Roman Catholic Church to be the established church of the state. His political descendants, Marine and her equivalents, have been much more canny in presenting themselves as modernising, democratic, reasonable, “mainstream” people whose only wish is to voice ordinary people’s concerns – the most recent of which is the disingenuous claim that “it’s not far right to be concerned about grooming gangs” (which was never what Starmer complained about – it is of course “far right” to demonise all Muslim people).

Born in 1928, Jean-Marie Le Pen was thus old enough to have had first-hand knowledge of the Nazi-friendly Vichy regime and remained sympathetic to the collaborationists for the rest of his life. Post-war, he was active in the Action Française, an extreme-right pro-monarchist group that enjoyed peak popularity in the 1930s – and with unreformed opinions.

In due course, he got elected to the French and European parliaments (the latter a more electorally reliable platform), founded his own movement, the Front National and espoused the unholy trinity of far-right politics in the decades after the Second World War: outright racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. He was an old-school clerical fascist, probably closer to Franco than Hitler.

This image were never going to make Jean-Marie Le Pen anything more than the recipient of a protest vote. Like Farage and the confused nationalists of east-central Europe, he found a safe perch in (and funding from) the European Parliament thanks to its generous system of proportional representation and disproportionate parliamentary allowances.

The Jean-Marie Le Pen who became such a controversial and hateful figure did lay some of the foundations for the later success of what is now the National Rally; but his movement was doomed to failure by the extensive baggage of history Le Pen hauled around – not least his callousness about the Holocaust, a “detail” according to him.

In Le Pen senior’s time, at least, it was harder for wild takes on current affairs to grip the imagination of the public. Whipping up hatred is easier, nowadays – the internet and social media has amplified the voices of those who would agree with him.

Jean-Marie Le Pen lived long enough to see European politics turn almost full circle and his daughter edge closer to power in France than he could ever have realistically hoped, even if that meant she had to denounce him and much of his work. He may be gone now, but Jean-Marie Le Pen will haunt Europe a while longer.