Paris — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the historic leader of France’s far-right political movement, died Tuesday at the age of 96, the French news agency AFP said, citing his family. Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for several weeks, died Tuesday “surrounded by his loved ones,” the family said in a statement.
His daughter Marine Le Pen is one of the most senior figures in the party, now called National Rally, which has seen its support surge in recent years. The current president of the party, which goes by the French acronym RN, Jordan Bardella, confirmed Le Pen’s death in a statement posted Tuesday on social media.
“He always served France, defended its identity and its sovereignty,” said Bardella. “Today I think with sadness of his family, his loved ones, and of course of Marine whose mourning must be respected.”
French right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the National Front party, addresses the Foreign Press Association in Paris, France, April 7, 1988. / Credit: Charles Platiau/REUTERS
Le Pen sent shockwaves through France in 2002 when he made it to the second round of the presidential election on a staunch anti-immigration platform. He was often accused of racism and antisemitism, and infamously dismissed the Holocaust as a detail of history.
His daughter took the party’s leadership in 2011 and booted him out four years later, seeking to distance her movement from his extremist reputation. RN showed strong gains in last year’s European Parliament elections, and became the largest single party in a subsequent general election in France.
Marine Le Pen said National Rally had “virtually wiped out” President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist power base in the first-round of the elections over the summer, taking nearly a third of the votes in a resounding rebuke to Macron’s troubled government.
She holds a seat in parliament and is the leader of the RN bloc in the legislature.
The new French government formed in the wake of the summer elections — after considerable haggling — is center-right, and while it does not include any RN members, the far-right, anti-immigration movement founded by the senior Le Pen now holds enough seats in parliament to exert significant influence over the country’s policies.
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