Hundreds of mourners gathered at Paris’ venerable Val-de-Grâce church on Thursday to pay their last respects to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the architect of France’s modern far-right movement who was known for his racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

The speaker at the memorial mass praised Mr. Le Pen, saying that he “saw before anyone else the dangers that threaten France today.” The choir sang a French military song asking God for “zeal to fight”. The crowd repeated the words of the prayer to Joan of Arc, with the request that “the people of France will always be a Christian people”.

But since Mr. Le Pen’s death on January 7 at the age of 96, the question of how much respect he deserves in death has ignited a passionate debate in France, given Mr. Le Pen’s long history of alarmist comments, his trivialization of the horrors of the Holocaust, and his claim that the German occupation France was not “particularly inhumane”.

Questions about his legacy reflect broader, unresolved tensions surrounding the party Mr. Le Pen co-founded the National Assembly in 1972. The party has moved from the fringes to the center of French politics in recent years and currently holds the largest number of seats in the National Assembly.

Yet, despite recent success, the leaders of the National Gathering regularly complain that they are still rejected “respect” from fellow MPs, they are excluded from political discussions and despised for leading positions.

Their peers know how to be open. IN TV interview earlier this weekFrançois Rebsamen, regional planning minister and a leftist in the current center-right government, said: “I respect all political forces, except the National Assembly.”

Gaining respect has been high on the National Gathering agenda in recent years. Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over the leadership of the party in 2011 and ousted Mr Le Pen in 2015. Three years later, the party changed its name (originally National Front) as part of an effort to soften its image, distance itself from his father and attracts a wider base.

The movements helped. Millions of voters were drawn to her anti-immigrant and anti-law and order views and populist economics. His supporters hope Ms Le Pen or her telegenic 29-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, could eventually win the presidential election.

But some memories are long. On the night of the death of Mr. Le Pen, French TV stations showed the crowd in Paris’ Place de la République, smiling and popping champagne bottles. Similar street parties broke out in Lyon, Marseille and elsewhere.

“Dirty racist is dead,” read one of the protesters. “What a beautiful day.”

The scenes of revelers were criticized by members of the current center-right government.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies dancing on a corpse,” the conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, published on social networks.

Mr Le Pen’s death comes amid huge political turmoil in France. The economy is stalling, public debt is rising, and the National Assembly, the powerful lower house of the legislature, is paralyzed by a three-way divide between the left, the center and the hard right.

Last month, the government of former center-right Prime Minister Michel Barnier dropped after just three monthsas members of the lower house, unable to agree on the budget, chastised Mr Barnier for trying to push it through. The National Assembly joined the left in overthrowing the government of Mr. Barnier by a vote of no confidence. It was disrespectful one big reason they did so.

Barnier’s centrist replacement, François Bayrou, is barely hanging on to a government that could fall any day.

The National Assembly did not say what its next move would be. But if members decide to vote against the government again, it could prove fatal to Mr Bayrou’s hopes of staying in office.

Holding a public mass for their xenophobic old figure could hurt the party in the short term. But Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the far right at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, said the party “had no choice but to organize a public tribute”, given the reputation of Mr. Le Pena and history with movement. “In a way, the party is a prisoner of its own history.”

Giorgios Samaras, assistant professor of public policy at King’s College London, said the party would now be able to reinforce “its newer, more moderate brand without constant reminders of Jean-Marie’s extreme views.”

The service focused on Mr Le Pen’s love of France and the fighting spirit he brought to politics and war itself, having served in the French army in Indochina and Algeria.

“Yes, Mr. Le Pen, you were strong-headed, you had a bad reputation, but you had the soul of a musketeer, a soldier in the service of France,” said Christophe Kowalczyk, a military chaplain who oversaw the ceremony, alluding to the lyrics of an old military song.

After the mass, the mourners left the church and the square towards it. They made their way down the narrow Rue Saint-Jacques, holding their programs from the service and shaking hands with friends.

A multi-storey dormitory towered over them. And from the window came the well-known battle cry of the European left: “We are all anti-fascists!” — We are all anti-fascists.