The National Front co-founder led the party for decades and was known for his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of France’s far-right National Front party, has died at the age of 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 fierce anti-immigration rhetoric that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation.
Le Pen, a polarizing figure in French politics, made statements – including Holocaust denial and a 1987 proposal to forcibly isolate people with AIDS – that led to multiple convictions and strained her political alliances.
Le Pen co-founded the National Front party in 1972 and ran for the French presidency five times. It caused shocks throughout France in 2002 when it reached the second round of the presidential election, which Jacques Chirac won.
Commenting on Le Pen’s death, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “A historic figure of the far right, she played a role in the public life of our country for almost 70 years, which is now a matter for history to judge.” ”.
Le Pen’s daughter Marine renamed her National Front party and transformed it into one of the most powerful political forces in France. He also distanced the party from his father’s extremist image.
Despite Jean-Marie Le Pen’s eventual exclusion from his own party in 2015, his divisive legacy endures.
He was an astute political strategist and gifted orator, who used his charisma to captivate crowds with his anti-immigration message.
His death came at a crucial time for his daughter. She now faces a possible prison sentence and a ban on running for political office if she is convicted in an embezzlement trial.
Various convictions
Le Pen, who lost an eye in a street fight in her youth, was a constant force in French political life, impossible for politicians to ignore.
He was convicted on numerous occasions of anti-Semitism and routinely accused of xenophobia and racism. Le Pen responded that he was simply a patriot protecting the identity of “eternal France.”
In 1990, he was convicted for a radio comment made three years earlier in which he referred to the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of World War II history.”
In 2015, he repeated the comment, saying he had “no regrets at all,” prompting the ire of his daughter, then the party leader, and a new conviction in 2016.
He was also convicted for a 1988 comment linking a cabinet minister to Nazi crematoriums, and for a 1989 comment blaming the “Jewish International” for helping to sow “this anti-national spirit.”
More recently, Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughters Marine and Yann were accused of using money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay their own staff, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations.
He was deemed medically unfit to testify in court.
