Paris Jean-Marie Le Pen, the historic leader of France's far-right political movement, died on Tuesday at the age of 96, the French news agency AFP reported, citing his family. Le Pen, who had been in hospital for several weeks, died on 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 Unity, whose support has grown in recent years. The current president of the party, which goes by the acronym RN, Jordan Bardella, confirmed the death of Le Pen in statement posted on Tuesday on social media.
“He always served France, defended its identity and sovereignty,” Bardella said. “Today I think with sadness of his family, his loved ones and of course the Marines whose mourning must be respected.”
Charles Plates/REUTERS
In 2002, Le Pen shocked France when he entered the second round of the presidential election on a staunch anti-immigration platform. He was often accused of racism and anti-Semitism, and shamefully dismissed the Holocaust as a piece of history.
His daughter led the party in 2011 and ousted him four years later in an effort to distance her movement from his extremist reputation. The RN scored a landslide victory in last year's European Parliament elections and became the largest single party in the next general election in France.
Marine Le Pen said Union Nationale had “effectively destroyed” President Emmanuel Macron's centrist power base in the first round of this summer's election, winning almost a third of the vote in a sharp rebuke to Macron's troubled government.
She holds a seat in parliament and is the leader of the RN bloc in the legislature.
The the new French government formed after the summer elections – after serious bargaining – is center-right, and although it does not have a single RN member, the far-right anti-immigration movement founded by the elder Le Pen now has enough seats in parliament to exert a significant influence on the country's politics.