Halfway between a soap opera, a Greek tragedy, and a vaudeville, the Le Pen saga stretches inexorably onward. The Oedipal psychodrama that, for the past six long months, has pitted Jean-Marie Le Pen against his daughter Marine, with his granddaughter Marion playing a secondary role, seems to have reached its conclusion unless there is a reversal.
An omnipotent leader of the party he co-founded from 1972 to 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen has been opposing, since his departure, the new strategy of the National Front leaders to detoxify the far-right party’s image in public opinion.
Human nature is mysterious, and politics is often a theater in which, to paraphrase Shakespeare, life is a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
How can we explain a daughter banishing her father, and him repudiating her for power in public life?
It feels like we are following in the footsteps of King Lear, who, disappointed by his daughters, descends into madness. However, Jean-Marie Le Pen is not a King Lear and this politico-familial saga deserves rather the label of grotesque, which, incidentally, is synonymous with Ubu-esque.
Has Père Ubu really been silenced? Will Mère Ubu take over?
Ultimately, this barely entertaining saga holds, unfortunately, nothing reassuring for the political future of France and the French.
