French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen dies at 96

French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died aged 96.

Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for a number of weeks, died at noon on Tuesday “surrounded by his family members”, the household stated.

Le Pen – who repeatedly performed down the Holocaust and was an unrepentant extremist on race, gender and immigration – based the French far-right Nationwide Entrance occasion in 1972.

He reached the presidential election-run off towards Jacques Chirac in 2002.

Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, took over as occasion chief in 2011. She has since rebranded the occasion as Nationwide Rally, turning it into certainly one of France’s primary political forces.

Based on French media, she had simply landed in Nairobi, Kenya when she heard the information and is flying again to France.

Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Marine Le Pen as occasion chair in 2022, stated Jean-Marie had “at all times served France” and “defended its identification and sovereignty”.

French President Emmanuel Macron described Le Pen as a “historic determine of the far proper”, including that “historical past will choose” his position within the nation’s political life.

Far-right nationalist Eric Zemmour stated on X that “past the controversies and the scandals” Le Pen can be remembered for being “among the many first to alert France of the existential threats lurking”.

On the opposite finish of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, chief of the unconventional left France Unbowed (LFI), stated that respecting the dignity of the useless and the grief of their household “doesn’t cancel out the proper to evaluate their actions. These of Jean-Marie Le Pen are insufferable.

“The wrestle towards the person is over. That towards the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism that he unfold continues.”

For a number of many years, Le Pen was France’s most controversial political determine. His critics denounced him as a far-right bigot and the courts convicted him a number of occasions for his radical remarks.

In a infamous interview in 1987, he pointedly performed down the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s homicide of six million Jews. “I don’t say that the gasoline chambers didn’t exist. I by no means personally noticed them,” he advised an interviewer. “I’ve by no means significantly studied the problem, however I consider they’re a degree of element within the historical past of World Struggle Two.”

France has strict legal guidelines towards Holocaust denial and Le Pen was convicted of contesting crimes towards humanity and fined €30,000 ($31,180; £24,875).

The previous Nationwide Entrance chief was convicted of the identical cost in 2012 after saying France’s Nazi occupation had been “not significantly inhumane”.

Nonetheless, Le Pen’s strident anti-immigration insurance policies attracted voters. Within the 1988 presidential election, he took 14% of the vote. That determine rose to fifteen% in 1995, and in 2002 Le Pen reached the ultimate spherical of the presidential election.

Nevertheless, events throughout the political spectrum referred to as on their supporters to vote towards him, and his opponent Chirac gained with 82%.

In 2015, Le Pen was expelled from the Nationwide Rally after once more restating his characterisation of the Holocaust as a “element”.

The dismissal additionally got here throughout a public feud along with his daughter, who stated his feedback about feedback in regards to the Holocaust had been “political suicide”.

“Perhaps by eliminating me she needed to make some form of gesture to the institution,” Le Pen would later inform the BBC’s Hugh Schofield.