RENNES: The grave in western France of Jean Marie Le Pen, the co-founder of the country’s main far-right movement, was vandalised this week, his former party said on Friday, denouncing an “unspeakable” act.

Le Pen, who stunned France by reaching the runoff of presidential elections in 2002, died on Jan 7 aged 96 after a career marked by openly racist and anti-Semitic views.

But his death also prompted an outpouring of respectful tributes — not just from the movement that he led and which has undergone major change under his daughter Marine Le Pen — but also the traditional right.

An image posted by Marie Caroline Le Pen, another of his daughters, showed that the stone cross adorning the grave in La Trinite-sur-Mer in Brittany had been smashed into pieces.

It is a family tomb, with his parents buried in the same plot.

Street parties had erupted in some French cities, including Paris, after Le Pen’s death was announced, prompting right-wing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to warn against “dancing on a corpse”.

Marine Le Pen took over from her father as head of the National Front (FN) in 2011, but rapidly took steps towards making the party an electable force, renaming it the RN and embarking on a policy known as “dediabolisation” (de-demonisation).

She slung her father out of the party for his anti-Semitic views in 2015.

But the two had reconciled in recent years.

After burying her father at the cemetery in La Trinite-sur-Mer, Marine Le Pen said she would “never forgive” herself for expelling her father from the party.

“This decision was one of the most difficult of my life. And until the end of my life, I will always ask myself the question: ‘could I have done this differently?’”, she said.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2025