Jean-Marie Le Pen (94) was admitted to Paris due to heart problems

Jean Marie Le Pen94 years old, founder of the far-right National Front (FN) and former European Member of Parliament, has been admitted since this Saturday to a hospital in the Paris region on a heart problem the extent of which has not been specified, the French media reported today.

According to the local press, The health condition of Marine Le Pen’s father is causing concern. The patriarch of the French extreme right is, in any case, aware. The last time the political veteran was hospitalized was in February 2022, when he suffered a mild cerebrovascular stroke, says Efe.

In statements to the media, Marine Le Pen sent a message of calmness and asserted that her father is “fine”. “My father is deservedly progressing towards his 95 years. For this reason, you have to go to the hospital from time to time for certain care,” said the far-right leader, who did not specify the date of discharge.

Le Pen was admitted to the Ambroise-Paré hospital in Boulogne-Billancourt, a wealthy city attached to Paris.

In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round of the French presidential election – the first time a far-right party had done so – after defeating the socialist Lionel Jospin, which created a huge impact in France and the rest of the world. Moreover, he easily lost the race to conservative Jacques Chiracwhich even got the vote of many socialists so that Le Pen could not win.

Member of the European Parliament from 1984 to 2019 and French representative in two terms (1956-62 and 1986-1988), Jean-Marie Le Pen made during his long career several racist, denialist and anti-Semitic statementswhat caused it various court convictionsalthough they also gave him a bad name.

He was the president of the National Front between 1972 and 2011when he took over from his daughter Marina, who a few years later changed the name of the party to the National Group (RN), currently the leading opposition party.

Since Marine took the reins of the far-right party in 2011 (with which she was a finalist in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections), relations with her father have been strained, to the point that she stripped him of the title of honorary president in 2015 due to some anti-Semitic statements . They recently got together.

Although he never held public office, Jean-Marie Le Pen made a decisive contribution to making the fight against immigration one of the main concerns of today’s French electorate.