The private funeral for Jean-Marie Le Pen has taken place amid heightened security after his death aged 96, exposed polarising attitudes toward a figure who for decades shook and shocked the country.
The funeral in his hometown of La Trinite-sur-Mer in the western Brittany region began in the presence of his daughter Marine Le Pen, who took over her polarising father’s political mantle, other family members and close friends.
Authorities beefed up security ahead of the ceremony, with barriers erected around the cemetery and dozens of police mobilised.
Security was tightened and protests banned after hundreds took to the streets in Paris and other cities to pop champagne corks and celebrate Le Pen’s death on Tuesday.
Marine Le Pen and one of her two sisters, Marie-Caroline, walked the few hundred metres between the family home and the small church of Saint-Joseph under blue skies in front of a small crowd of onlookers and several dozen journalists.
Neither Marion Marechal, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter and a prominent far-right politician, nor Jordan Bardella, the leader of the party Le Pen co-founded, now called the National Rally, were seen entering the church through the main entrance.
Around 200 people were expected to be seated inside the church. After the ceremony Le Pen will be buried in the vault where his parents rest.
“It’s moving for me to pay my last respects to him here and to pray for the salvation of his soul,” said one of the guests, Bruno Gollnisch, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s one-time right-hand man.
“He was a joyful comrade!”
A defining figure of French far-Right politics, he will be buried in the same vault as his late parents. A public ceremony is scheduled for Jan 16 in Paris.
For years, the National Front party that Mr Le Pen founded in 1972 sought to distance itself from him, given his often inflammatory remarks that were openly racist and anti-Semitic.
These comments were so extreme that he was convicted multiple times, including for statements that downplayed the Holocaust. On several occasions, he described Hitler’s gas chambers as a “detail” of history.
Mr Le Pen was such a firebrand that when his daughter, Marine Le Pen took over the party in 2011 and renamed it the National Rally, expelled him as part of her efforts to gain more mainstream support. At the time, he demanded she stop using the name “Le Pen,” even launching legal proceedings, though they ultimately failed.
While their personal relationship continued to be fraught, Ms Le Pen paid a personal tribute to her father after his death, calling him a “warrior” in a post on X. “Many people he loved are waiting for him up there. Many who love him mourn him here below,” she wrote. “Fair winds and following seas, Papa!”
Even in death, Mr Le Pen remains a divisive figure.
Those who opposed his views took to the streets of Paris and other cities to mark his passing, popping champagne in celebration and chanting: “Happy New Year, Jean-Marie is dead.”
The French government, however, denounced the joyous celebrations.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing justifies dancing on a corpse,” said Bruno Retailleau, France’s interior minister.
“The death of a man, even if he is a political opponent, should inspire only restraint and dignity. These scenes of jubilation are deeply disgraceful.”
French prime minister François Bayrou described Mr Le Pen as a “fighter” and “figure of French political life”.
President Emmanuel Macron, however, did not make a personal comment. Instead, his office issued a statement saying that history would judge Mr Le Pen, and that the president had sent condolences to the family.
