At the age of 96 Right-wing populist Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead

Jean-Marie Le Pen has died at the age of 96. This was announced by his family.

The French right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen is dead. The founder of the now renamed Front National (FN) party died at the age of 96, as the French news agency AFP reported, citing Le Pen's family. The leader of the party, which has since been renamed Rassemblement National, Jordan Bardella, also wrote on X that Jean-Marie Le Pen had died.

Le Pen, who has since been expelled from the party, had made headlines in his final years, particularly with his ongoing political feud with his daughter Marine Le Pen. The right-wing populist had broken politically with her father after he had repeatedly thwarted her strategy of a more moderate stance. Under her leadership, the FN renamed itself Rassemblement National in 2018.

Le Pen made the Front National big

Jean-Marie Le Pen co-founded the far-right party in 1972 and led it for almost four decades. During this time, he transformed the FN from a splinter group into a political force to be taken seriously, using pithy provocations to stir up a mood against immigrants. His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from him in 2011 and has since successfully sought to "demonize" the party.

The FN finally expelled Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 after he repeatedly trivialized the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history" of the Second World War. He fought back fiercely, accused his daughter of "treason" and repeatedly attacked her in public. He prevailed in court and was initially allowed to keep his title as honorary chairman. However, he was later stripped of this title.

Multiple convictions for incitement to hatred

Jean-Marie Le Pen was born in 1928, the son of a Breton fisherman and a seamstress. After studying law and politics, he joined the French Foreign Legion. He was repeatedly accused of torturing prisoners during the Algerian War (1954-1962), which he himself denied. However, he lost a libel suit against the newspaper "Le Monde" in 2003.

He was repeatedly convicted of trivializing Nazi crimes and incitement to hatred. Le Pen scored his biggest coup when he came second in the 2002 presidential election and ran against Jacques Chirac in the run-off. France is still talking about the "shock of April 21" today. His daughter then achieved results in the 2022 elections that her father could only dream of with her efforts to appear moderate: more than 40 percent in the final round of the presidential election and a huge increase in the party's parliamentary seats.