The funeral of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died on Tuesday at the age of 96, will take place on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan), in the strictest family privacy, with a system of safety in front “prevent possible disturbances to public order”.
The ceremony is to be held in the small Saint-Joseph church where some 200 people will be able to attend the funeral which is to be celebrated by Father Dominique Le Quernec, rector of the parish of Carnac, a religious source told AFP.
The former leader of the French far right must be buried in the vault where his parents rest. “The Menhir” had expressed in the past his wish to be buried in the family vault in La Trinité-sur-Mer, a coastal tourist town of 1,700 inhabitants, where he grew up.
Another ceremony, “religious and of homage”will take place on January 16 at 11:00 a.m. in the Notre Dame du Val-de-Grâce church in Paris, attached to the diocese of the French Armies. This mass, decided by Marine Le Pen and her sisters Marie-Caroline and Yann, will be open to the public.
Journalists film the Le Pen family home in La Trinité-sur-mer, Brittany, on the day of the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, January 7, 2025 / Loic VENANCE / AFP
The two events should remain conducive to contemplation, said Louis Aliot, vice-president of the RN, while Tuesday evening, several hundred opponents gathered in certain cities in France, including Paris, Lyon or Rennes, to celebrate, with songs, smoke bombs and fireworks, the death of “JMLP”.
“They are not going to come and demonstrate at a funeral. And if they do, I suppose the state will make sure to keep them away.”warned the mayor of Perpignan.
Prefectural decree
Friday, the prefect of Morbihan Pascal Bolot issued an order prohibiting demonstrations in the town, given that “the political personality of the deceased” was “likely to attract, alongside the religious ceremony and the burial, a large crowd composed of both sympathizers but also possibly opponents”.
The prefecture also justifies its order by “the risks of disruptions and counter-demonstrations likely to provoke clashes between antagonistic movements with diametrically opposed ideologies and regularly inciting violence”.
The Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau had judged “shameful” the scenes of jubilation on Tuesday while Mathilde Panot, boss of the LFI deputies, said she was not “shocked”.
According to the Morbihan prefecture, “a security system will be put in place to ensure that the funeral takes place with dignity and prevent possible disturbances to public order”.
Around a hundred law enforcement officers, including a squadron of mobile gendarmes, will be present to avoid any excess, according to a source close to the matter.
A provocative tribune, obsessed with immigration and Jews, Jean-Marie Le Pen was condemned for several of his statements on the Second World War, and for homophobic insults.
The Le Pen family vault in La Trinité-sur-mer in Brittany, January 7, 2025 / Loic VENANCE / AFP
Elected deputy in 1956 under the Fourth Republic, he brought the French far right out of its marginality during a political career which marked the Fifth Republic.
This veteran of Indochina then returned to Algeria, where he will be accused of torture – something he has always contested.
On April 21, 2002, he shocked the political class and a large part of French public opinion by reaching the second round of the presidential election behind the outgoing Jacques Chirac.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, after being married to Pierrette Lalanne, the mother of his daughters Marie-Caroline, Yann (herself mother of MEP Marion Maréchal) and Marine, married Jany Paschos for the second time.
In 2019, the Breton port and the Saint-Joseph church hosted the funeral of another character who had marked his era, the singer Alain Barrière.
