Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine
The founder and long-time leader of one of the most successful right-wing parties in Europe is now, at the ripe old age of 88, in the unfortunate position of having to take on that very party in court. Since handing over the leadership of National Front to his daughter Marine in 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen has been in repeated conflict with the direction taken by his party. While it has to be granted that Marine has achieved electoral results her father could only dream of, it has come at a major cost of principles. Marine is certainly less of a traditionalist than her father is. She openly prioritizes “party unity” over core traditionalist and nationalist principles, and enjoys hanging out in nightclubs with her homosexual, Jewish, Arabic, and Freemason friends.
I’d expect that both her political shift to the left and her liberal lifestyle would be appalling to her father, who enjoys a much better relationship with his traditionalist Roman Catholic niece, Marion. Because of her principled Christian traditionalist stance, young Marion has even been blamed by Marine for disrupting party unity.
The strained relationship between Marine and her father shockingly culminated last year when she banned the founder and former leader of the party because of his so-called “anti-Semitism.” His crime: referring to Nazi gas chambers as “a detail” of World War II history. Thus, in Marine Le Pen’s National Front, not emphasizing the Jewish persecution of the 1930s and 40s as supremely important over every other atrocity in all of history is ground for expulsion, even if you are father Jean-Marie, and even if you are her own father. Now Jean-Marie is turning to a court to force his own party to readmit him. His lawyer is making the argument that his expulsion violated party procedure.
Contrary to the current leader’s claims, this regrettable family feud is in fact at the heart of National Front’s current disunity. It also may as well end up being more damaging to the party in the long run than any of the so-called “controversial” remarks Jean-Marie made in the past.
The feud could perhaps have been avoided altogether if Jean-Marie had been aware of the moral problems and practical difficulties that accompany appointing women to positions of political leadership – something to which both Scripture and history amply attest. It is a pity that his Roman Catholic background may have hindered him from becoming familiar with the work of Protestant Reformer John Knox in this regard, as the Scotsman may have taught him that
where Women reign and be in Authority, there Vanity must needs be preferred to Virtue, Ambition and Pride to Temperance and Modesty; and finally, That Avarice the Mother of all Mischief must needs there devour Equity and Justice.
The case of Marine Le Pen’s persecution of her own father is one among many within the contemporary Occidental Right which shows that what the movement essentially needs to be productive and successful is not less, but more, outright biblical Christianity.
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