Why do the left mock the dead?

It was party time in Paris and elsewhere in France on Tuesday evening as hundreds of people celebrated the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The figurehead of France’s far-right died earlier in the day aged 96 and within hours a jubilant crowd had assembled in the capital’s Place de la République. Champagne was uncorked, fireworks were sent into the night sky and there were chants of ‘The dirty racist is dead’ and ‘Marine, you are next’. Marine Le Pen assumed leadership of the National Front in 2011, 40 years after her father helped found the party that is now known as the National Rally.

France’s Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, called the scenes in Paris, Lyon and Marseille ‘shameful’ and said: ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies dancing over a corpse. The death of a man, even a political adversary, should only inspire restraint and dignity.