AFTER ALMOST 40 years as leader and figurehead of the far-right National Front (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen has announced that he will retire next year, bringing to an end one of the most controversial careers in modern French politics.
Mr Le Pen’s confirmation that he will stand down next January and will not run for president in 2012 draws to a close his dominance of the party he founded in 1972 and for which he stood in five presidential elections.
The 82-year-old, once convicted for making dismissive remarks about the crimes of the Nazi regime, said he would leave politics with “no remorse, no regrets and no repentance”.
For the first time in its 38-year history, the National Front will hold an election for its next leader, with Mr Le Pen’s daughter Marine (41) – a member of the European Parliament – the favourite to succeed him.
Ms Le Pen is thought to be more liberal on social issues than her father, though her desire to widen the party’s appeal could encounter resistance from its traditional conservative members.
Her only declared challenger is Bruno Gollnisch (60), Mr Le Pen’s right-hand man for many years and a standard bearer for National Front traditionalists.
Mr Le Pen’s long-expected decision follows his party’s resurgent showing in last month’s regional elections, when it won almost 12 per cent of the first-round vote.
The performance confounded pollsters and reversed a serious decline in the party’s support in the 2007 legislative elections.
“It seemed to me that it would be wise to pass on the torch,” Mr Le Pen said. “I was focused on the aim of getting the FN back on track after the painful episode of the legislative elections.”
After last month’s electoral success, he said he was convinced that his party would be “a decisive element in the politics of tomorrow”.
However, the National Front has been in severe financial difficulty in recent years and has been forced to sell its headquarters outside Paris to help clear its debts.
A combative former paratrooper who fought in Indochina and Algeria, Mr Le Pen gained notoriety for his remarks about the Holocaust and his aggressive anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2008 he was found guilty by a French court of “justification of war crimes” and “contesting crimes against humanity”. He had said the Nazi occupation of France was “not particularly inhumane”.
In his 38-year leadership of the National Front, Mr Le Pen has sought to place himself in opposition to the Parisian elite and purported to speak for a traditional, predominantly rural France that opposed immigration and espoused traditional conservative values.
The peak of his career came in the presidential election of 2002, when he caused a sensation by beating the then Socialist leader, Lionel Jospin, into third place and reaching the run-off against Jacques Chirac.
Mr Le Pen has declined to say who should succeed him. As the leadership ballot will be open to all party members, Ms Le Pen is believed to have the edge – not least because of her surname, her high visibility and her skill in dealing with media. Her opponent Mr Gollnisch, an MEP and the party vice-president, is a lawyer and fluent Japanese speaker with a comparatively low public profile.