French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen dies aged 96

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the co-founder of France’s far-right National Front party, has died aged 96.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Marine Le Pen’s political party, National Rally (Rassemblement National) on Tuesday.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s ferocious rhetoric against immigration earned him acclaim from both devoted supporters and widespread condemnation.

Le Pen, a polarizing figure in French politics, made statements that divided his political cadres, including those that included a 1987 proposal to forcibly isolate people with AIDS and denials of the Holocaust.

Le Pen contested the presidency of France five times and co-founded the National Front in 1972. When he succeeded in the second round of the presidential election, which Jacques Chirac won, in 2002, he shook France to the floor.

French President Emmanuel Macron said: “A historic figure of the far right, he played a role in the public life of our country for nearly 70 years, which is now up to history.”

Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, renamed his National Front party and transformed it into one of France’s most powerful political forces. She also distanced the party from her father’s extremist image.

Despite Jean-Marie Le Pen’s eventual exclusion from his own party in 2015, his divisive legacy endures.

He used his charisma to captivate audiences with his anti-immigration message, both as a wily political strategist and gifted orator.

His daughter was in a crucial moment when he died. If found guilty in an embezzlement trial, she now faces a potential prison sentence and a ban on running for political office.

Several convictions

Le Pen, who in his youth lost an eye in a street fight, was a force that politicians had to ignore throughout French politics.

He was frequently accused of racism and xenophobia and was repeatedly found guilty of anti-Semitism. Le Pen responded that he was merely a patriot guarding the “eternal France” identity.

He was found guilty in 1990 of making the radio remark that described the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail in World War II history.”

In 2015, he repeated the remark, saying he “did not at all” regret it, triggering the ire of his daughter – by then the party leader – and a new conviction in 2016.

He also was convicted for a 1988 remark linking a Cabinet minister with the Nazi crematory ovens, and for a 1989 comment blaming the “Jewish international” for helping seed “this anti-national spirit”.

In contravention of the 27-nation bloc’s rules, Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughters Marine and Yann have been accused of using funds intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay their own staff.