Far-right French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen dies at 96
A controversial figure of the French far right, the founder of the National Front behind nearly 70 years of political commitment
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front and historic figure of the French extreme right, died on Tuesday at the age of 96, his family said. Born on June 20, 1928, in La-Trinité-sur-Mer to a modest family, his rhetoric was part of the tapestry of French political life for more than seven decades.
His political career began in 1956, when he became the youngest deputy in France from the populist Poujadist movement. After his involvement in the Indochina War and the Battle of Algiers, he founded the National Front in 1972, a party he would lead with an iron fist for nearly forty years.
The pinnacle of his career occurred on April 21, 2002, when he caused a political earthquake by qualifying for the second round of the presidential election against Jacques Chirac, with 16.86 percent of the votes.
"He is driven by the voters' desire to sweep away both the right and left wing of the government, and by issues related to identity and security," historian Nicolas Lebourg said.
In 2011, he handed over the party presidency to his daughter Marine Le Pen, before being expelled in 2015 following new controversies. This expulsion was confirmed by the courts in 2018. In his memoirs published the same year, he expressed regret about seeing France "shrinking, until it completely changes... this strange phenomenon was the driving force of my political life and the sorrow of my life in general."
His daughter, Marine, renamed the party and successfully rebranded the far-right party as an alternative to the mainstream French political choices.
Le Pen has been convicted six times for inciting racial hatred during his lifetime, notably for questioning the use of gas chambers in Nazi extermination camps. In addition to his anti-Semitic positions, Le Pen also spoke out against Muslims in France on numerous occasions, which earned him several fines for incitement to hatred.
His last notable public appearance dates back to 2019, when he left the European Parliament, which he had been serving in since 1984. In 2024, his health was deemed "incompatible" with his presence at the National Rally parliamentary assistants' trial. According to his wishes, he will be buried in the cemetery of La Trinité-sur-Mer, next to his father, under a simple plaque bearing the inscription "Jean-Marie."