Co-founder of the National Front, he led the party for decades and was known for his heated anti-immigration rhetoric.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the far-right French National Front party, has died aged 96.
His death was confirmed on Tuesday by his daughter Marine Le Pen’s political party Rassemblement National.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was known for his fiery anti-immigration rhetoric, which won him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation.
A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen made statements – including Holocaust denial and a 1987 proposal to forcibly isolate AIDS sufferers – that led to multiple convictions and strained his political alliances.
Le Pen co-founded the National Front party in 1972 and ran for the presidency of France five times. When he entered the second round of the presidential election in France in 2002, which was won by Jacques Chirac, he caused shock.
Commenting on Le Pen’s death, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “As a historic figure of the extreme right, he played a role in the public life of our country for almost 70 years, which is now for history to judge.”
Le Pen’s daughter Marine renamed his Front National party, transforming it into one of France’s most powerful political forces. She also distanced the party from her father’s extremist image.
Although Jean-Marie Le Pen was eventually expelled from his own party in 2015, his divisive legacy remains.
He was a shrewd political strategist and gifted speaker who used his charisma to captivate the masses with his anti-immigration message.
His death came at a crucial time for his daughter. She now faces possible prison time and a ban from running for political office if she is convicted in an embezzlement trial.
Multiple convictions
Le Pen, who lost an eye in a street fight in his youth, was a constant force in French political life who could not be ignored by politicians.
He was repeatedly convicted of anti-Semitism and regularly accused of xenophobia and racism. Le Pen replied that he was simply a patriot defending the identity of “eternal France”.
In 1990 he was convicted of a radio comment made three years earlier in which he called the Nazi gas chambers a “detail in the history of World War II.”
In 2015, he repeated the remark and said he had “no regrets at all,” sparking the ire of his daughter – then party leader – and a new conviction in 2016.
He was also convicted of a 1988 remark linking a cabinet minister to Nazi crematorium ovens and a 1989 remark accusing the Jewish International of helping to to sow “this anti-national spirit”.
Recently, Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughters Marine and Yann were accused of using funds intended for European Union parliamentary staff to pay their own staff, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s rules.
He was deemed medically unfit to testify in court.
