Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front, known for his fierce anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism rhetoric that earned him a devoted following and widespread condemnation, has died. He was 96 years old.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, as the party is now known, confirmed Le Pen’s death in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday.
A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen’s inflammatory statements, including Holocaust denial, led to multiple convictions and strained her political alliances.
Le Pen, who once reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election, eventually separated from his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who renamed his National Front party, kicked him out and transformed him into one of the political forces. most powerful in France, while distancing itself. of his father’s extremist image
Despite her exclusion from the party in 2015, Le Pen’s divisive legacy endures, marking decades of French political history and shaping the trajectory of the far right.
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 the embezzlement trial currently underway.
A fixture for decades in French politics, the fiery Jean-Marie Le Pen was an astute political strategist and gifted orator who used his charisma to captivate crowds with his anti-immigration message.
The burly, silver-haired son of a Breton fisherman saw himself as a man with a mission: to keep France French under the banner of the National Front. By choosing Joan of Arc as the party’s patron saint, Le Pen made Islam and Muslim immigrants her main target, blaming them for France’s economic and social problems.
A former paratrooper and foreign legionnaire who fought in Indochina and Algeria, he led his supporters in political and ideological battles with a panache that became the signature of his career.
“If I advance, follow me; If I die, avenge me; If I shirk, kill me,” Le Pen said at a party congress in 1990, reflecting the theatrical style that for decades fueled the fervor of her followers.
Le Pen had recently been cleared of prosecution on health grounds in a high-profile trial over suspected misappropriation of European Parliament funds by her party that began in September. Le Pen had 11 previous convictions, including for violence against a public official and anti-Semitic hate speech.
French judicial authorities placed Le Pen under legal guardianship in February at the request of her family as her health worsened, French media reported. His health had been fragile for some time.