Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right leader known for fiery rhetoric against immigration, dies at 96

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front who was known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, died Tuesday. He was 96.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front who was known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, died Tuesday. He was 96.

A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen was convicted numerous times of antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence. Yet, despite those convictions and his eventual political estrangement, the nativist ideas that propelled his decades of popularity -- encapsulated in slogans like "French People First" -- remain ascendant in today's France, across Europe and beyond.

His statements -- including Holocaust denial, racist denunciations of Muslims and immigrants, and his 1987 proposal to forcibly isolate people with AIDS in special facilities -- shocked his critics and strained his political alliances. Le Pen routinely countered that he was simply a patriot protecting the identity of "eternal France."

Le Pen, who reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election, was eventually estranged from his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who renamed his National Front party, kicked him out and transformed it into one of France's most powerful political forces while distancing herself from her father's extremist image.

Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally as the party is now known, confirmed Le Pen's death in a post on social media platform X. Bardella's unusually warm tribute described Le Pen as a "tribune of the people" who "always served France" and expressing condolences to his family.

The post appeared to blur the distance the rebranded party had sought to establish between its firebrand founder and its more polished, modern direction under Marine Le Pen.

French President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, expressed "his condolences to (Le Pen's) family and friends," in an uncharacteristically short statement issued by the presidential palace.