AS a Holocaust denier and founder of France’s far-right National Front, he was one of politics’ most controversial figures.
Yesterday, Jean-Marie Le Pen, seen by some as the forerunner of the populist politics now sweeping the globe, died aged 96, “surrounded by loved ones”.
The firebrand politician had called the Holocaust a mere “detail of history” and spoke of “the inequality of races”.
Yet he rocked the French political establishment when voters chose him to contest an unsuccessful presidential election run-off against Jacques Chirac in 2002.
His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the party in 2011 and rebranded it as the more moderate National Rally.
Father and daughter would eventually fall out over his extremist views as she tried to make the party electable.
In 2015 Le Pen senior was suspended and stripped of his title of president. The relationship never recovered.
President Macron trod a diplomatic line on Jean-Marie’s passing. A message released by Élysée Palace said he was “a historic figure of the far right, he played a role in the public life of our country for nearly 70 years, which is now a matter for history to judge”.
Le Pen’s political career was famously controversial, but his personal life was as stormy.
When he divorced Pierrette Lalanne — mother of his three kids — in 1987, she posed nude with a vacuum cleaner for Playboy magazine, revenge for Le Pen’s view a woman’s place was in the home.
The son of a fisherman and dress maker, Le Pen was born into modest circumstances in La Trinité-sur-Mer in Brittany in 1928.
He read law in Paris and later served in Algeria during its war of independence.
He was later accused of torturing prisoners. Le Monde newspaper found four of his alleged victims but he denied any involvement.
Le Pen became a deputy in France’s National Assembly at 28 years old but after losing his seat in 1962 he set up a right-wing publishing company.
When it released an album of Nazi songs he was prosecuted and fined in 1968.
In 1972, Le Pen founded the National Front, with its ranks including neo-Nazis. He received little support and in 1976 his flat was bombed.
In 1987 he was fined for describing Nazi gas chambers as ‘a detail in the history of the Second World War’
His party’s fortunes changed when unemployment rose after socialist François Mitterand was elected president in 1981.
Le Pen blamed immigrants for taking jobs and his popularity soared. The Front won 35 seats in the National Assembly.
In 1987 he was fined for describing Nazi gas chambers as “a detail in the history of the Second World War”.
But in 2002, Le Pen’s anti-immigrant rhetoric found support as he faced off against Chirac for the presidency.
Unsuccessful, he passed the leadership of his party to his daughter in 2011. When Le Pen again dismissed the Holocaust as a triviality, he was thrown out of the party.
Le Pen started a new political movement but his time was over. Soon the era of populism was dawning in which his anti-elite views might have proved a success.
