The image appeared to show the far-right figure in tears onboard an airplane.
Paris Match, a popular French tabloid, sparked outrage after publishing a photograph of Marine Le Pen after learning of her father’s death.
The image, which according to Paris Match was taken on Tuesday, appeared to show Le Pen in tears while walking down the aisle of a plane. The tabloid and other French media traveling with Le Pen reported that she learned of her father’s death during a layover in Kenya while returning from Mayotte, a French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that was ravaged by a cyclone last month.
Paris Match deleted the picture both on its website and on social media after the leader of Le Pen’s party, Jordan Bardella, castigated the magazine for sharing it.
“The publication by Paris Match of a photo of Marine Le Pen, at the moment she learns of the death of her father, is of unparalleled indignity,” Bardella said in a post on X that was widely reported in French media but later deleted from his account. “If dishonor had a name tonight, it would be Paris Match,” Bardella added.
Bardella said that his team had contacted Paris Match’s editorial staff and that the publication had taken responsibility for the incident.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and longtime leader of the National Front, the National Rally’s predecessor, died on Tuesday at the age of 96.
“A venerable age had taken the warrior but given us back our father. Death has come to take him from us,” Le Pen said on X the day after her father’s death. “Many people he loved are waiting for him up there. Many who love him mourn him here below.”
Victor Goury-Laffont contributed to this report.
