Jean-Marie Le Pen dies: Front National founder was 96 years old

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, the French news agency AFP reported, citing Le Pen’s family. The head of the party, now renamed Rassemblement National, Jordan Bardella, also wrote on X that Jean-Marie Le Pen had died.

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

Jean-Marie Le Pen co-founded the right-wing party in 1972 and led it for almost four decades. During this time, he transformed the FN from a splinter group into a serious political force, using pithy provocations to stir up sentiment against immigrants. His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the party leadership from him in 2011 and has been successfully working to “de-devilize” the party ever since.

The FN finally expelled Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 after he repeatedly trivialized the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of the history” of the Second World War. He defended himself bitterly, accused his daughter of “treason” and repeatedly attacked her publicly. In court he secured that he was initially allowed to retain the title of honorary chairman. However, this was later canceled.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was born in 1928 as the son of a Breton fisherman and a seamstress. After studying law and politics, he joined the French Foreign Legion. He was accused several times of torturing prisoners in the Algerian War (1954-1962), but he himself rejected this. However, he lost a libel lawsuit against the newspaper “Le Monde” in 2003.

He was repeatedly convicted of trivializing Nazi crimes and inciting hatred. Le Pen achieved his greatest coup when he came second in the 2002 presidential election and ran against Jacques Chirac in the runoff. France still speaks of the “shock of April 21st” today. In the 2022 elections, his daughter’s efforts to maintain a moderate stance achieved results that her father could only dream of: more than 40 percent in the final round of the presidential election and a huge increase in the party’s parliamentary seats.

Transparency note: This article has been updated.