Jean-Marie Le Pen, a controversial figure in French politics, died aged 96 on Tuesday (Jan 7). 

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The aged leader had been in a care home for several weeks and died “surrounded by his loved ones,” said his family in a statement.

Who was Jean-Marie Le Pen?

Le Pen was the co-founder of France's far-right National Front party, later renamed the National Rally (RN).

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A controversial figure, Le Pen is infamously considered the far-right bogeyman of French politics.

Born in the port of La Trinite-sur-Mer in the western Brittany region on June 20, 1928, Jean-Marie Le Pen was the son of a seamstress and a fisherman.

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Le Pen lost his father during a fishing boat accident during World War II and soon enlisted for service in two wars in French colonies—the First Indochina War (1946-1954) in Vietnam, and then in Algeria War (1954-1962). 

He also took part in the Franco-British military expedition to seize the Suez Canal (1956) and even joined forces a few years later to keep Algeria French.

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Jean-Marie Le Pen's political career

Shortly after returning from Algeria, Jean-Marie Le Pen entered politics and was elected to parliament in 1956, becoming France's youngest MP at the age of 27. 

In 1972, he co-founded the National Front (FN), billed as a “national, social and popular” party. In 2015, his daughter Marion Anne Perrine “Marine” Le Pen (the current deputy of the French National Assembly) kicked him out of FN, now called the National Rally (RN).

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He ran for president in 1974 and again in 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. In 2002, he made it to the run-offs, the second round of the presidential elections, ultimately won by Jacques Chirac.

Why is Jean-Marie Le Pen a controversial figure?

The far-right leader is known for his anti-Semitism remarks, which also got him booted from the political party he founded.

The controversial personality was accused and even convicted several times in France and abroad of xenophobia and antisemitism. His infamous statements include coining the term “Sidaïque” for “person infected with AIDS,” who he advocated should be put in forced isolation away from society.

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He also made numerous provocative statements about the Holocaust, which he repeatedly referred to as a mere “detail” of history.

“I ask myself several questions. I'm not saying the gas chambers didn't exist. I haven't seen them myself. I haven't particularly studied the question. But I believe it's just a detail in the history of World War II,” he said in September 1987. His remark earned him the nickname the “Devil of the Republic,” along with a string of convictions for anti-Semitism and racism.

Tributes pour in

Taking to X, French PM François Bayrou paid tribute to the departed leader and said: “Beyond the controversies that were his favorite weapon and the necessary confrontations on the substance, JM Le Pen will have been a figure of French political life. We knew, by fighting him, what a fighter he was.”

Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella, RN party chief and the right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, posted: “As a soldier in the French army in Indochina and Algeria, as a tribune of the people in the National Assembly and the European Parliament, he always served France and defended its identity and sovereignty.”

“Today I am thinking with sadness of his family, his loved ones, and of course of Marine whose mourning must be respected,” he added.
(With inputs from agencies)