Police in France’s western region of Brittany said they are investigating the damage to the grave, which was reportedly caused by a sledgehammer.
ADVERTISEMENTThe tomb housing the remains of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front, has been vandalised just weeks after the polarising leader was buried.
Authorities in the western Brittany region of France said they were informed of the damage on Friday and that police were investigating. The tomb was shattered into pieces with a sledgehammer, according to the French news outlet Ici Bretagne.
Le Pen — who was one of the most controversial figures in French politics for his fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism — died aged 96 on 7 January. He was buried in a Le Pen family tomb in the small Brittany port of La Trinité-sur-Mer.
“There are no words to describe those who attack the most sacred of things”, Marie-Caroline Le Pen — one of Le Pen’s three daughters — said in a post on X that included a photo of the destroyed tomb.
“Those who attack the dead are capable of the worst against the living”, she added.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau called the damage “an absolute abjection”.
“Respect for the dead is what distinguishes civilisation from barbarism,” he posted on X.
Brittany authorities said in a statement that “given the political sensitivity,” the cemetery had been the focus of increased police surveillance around Le Pen’s burial on 11 January.
The security was subsequently scaled down but will now be stepped back up again given “the exceptional nature” of the attack, the statement said.
Le Pen’s extreme views won him staunch supporters, especially when he tapped into white working-class frustration over immigration, but also widespread condemnation.
He repeatedly denied the Holocaust and was convicted multiple times of antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence. He made Islam and Muslim immigrants his primary targets, blaming them for economic and social woes in France.
His daughter Marine Le Pen took over his party, renamed it the National Rally and turned it into one of France’s most powerful political forces while distancing herself from her father.
She is considered among the favourites to be France’s next president in 2027. However, the prosecutor in the ongoing embezzlement trial against her and other National Rally officials has asked for Le Pen to be banned from office.
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