If you ever find yourself scrolling through the labyrinth of French politics looking for a souvenir of the far right and perhaps, for those who love a good scandal, a dash of racist notoriety, then welcome!
Picture it, a young Jean-Marie, all fire and perm, storming the political arena like a French Bridget Jones who’s had one too many espressos and decided the EU is the real villain.
I was born in 1928 in a small town that smelled of coal and ambition. Even as a child I was fascinated by the idea of order, the kind you get when you line up your toys in perfect, militaristic rows.
When the French army called, I answered, more out of a sense of duty than any desire to become famous. My time in the army gave me a taste of hierarchy and the smell of freshly polished boots, which later proved useful in politics.
In 1972, after a series of jobs that included a brief stint as a civil servant (which I left because bureaucracy is for the weak), I co-founded the National Front. The moment I saw our first poster I felt the rush of a rock star’s debut. This was my first genuine far-right brand-building exercise, and I was proud of the fact that my name was now on every billboard from Marseille to Lille.
My early years in politics were marked by a series of très memorable gaffes. Did I compare Nazis to French resistance heroes? Oui. Did I blame immigrants for everything from unemployment to bad croissants? Yep. I first earned the racist label in the 1980s after a televised interview in which I, perhaps too candidly, referred to people of non-European origin as a “danger to French identity.
Perhaps my most entertaining highlight was the avalanche of lawsuits that followed my incendiary remarks, in 1992, I was convicted for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not particularly inhumane and i got a three-month suspended prison sentence and €10,000 (£8,283) fine.
In 2004, I took my show on the road to the European Parliament. My highlight here was an impromptu, flamboyant speech in which I compared the EU to a giant bureaucratic nightmare that eats French cheese and culture. I was subsequently banned from certain parliamentary sessions, a move I consider a badge of honor.
I made five attempts to become president of France and failed five times also but sacre bleu, I am the ghost of French politics past.
My daughter Marine inherited the family business, and let me tell you, she’s so much prettier, and it was fun watching her try to re-brand the National Front into a more respectable party although that did include expelling me from my own party for anti-Semitic remarks and denying the Holocaust whilst praising Nazi war collaborators.
I pioneering the art of saying whatever’s most offensive in the room, Controversy sells and a good scandal keeps you in the news. I made political incorrectness a brand, a lifestyle, a fashion statement. And let’s not forget the trials! Getting hauled before judges for defending the indefensible? It was like The Mask of Zorro, but with more lawyers and less ziplining. Moi, j’adooore a good courtroom drama. Especially when the prosecution’s arguments are as flimsy as a Frenchman’s excuse for not doing the dishes.
A quiet Sunday in Provence, the kind where the sun lingers and I’m sipping a glass of Château Whatever, surrounded by my family (well, the ones who still speak to me), when my brain and my heart ganged up on me but neither the stroke or the heart attack killed me outright, they played a much longer game and i died from them a year later.
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