Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the French far-right National Front party, has died aged 96.
Le Pen shook the French political establishment when he unexpectedly reached the presidential election run-off vote against Jacques Chirac in 2002.
Despite losing in a landslide, he rewrote the parameters of French politics in a career spanning multiple decades, harnessing voter discontent over immigration and job security – heralding president-elect Donald Trump’s own rise.
Throughout his career he faced accusations of racism, and his controversial statements included Holocaust denial.
After leading the then-National Front from 1972 to 2011, he was succeeded as party chief by his daughter, Marine Le Pen.
She has since run for the presidency three times and turned the party, now called the National Rally, into one of the country’s main political forces.
More on France
Related Topics:
Jordan Bardella, current president of the National Rally, confirmed Le Pen’s death on social media.
He said: “Today I am thinking with sadness of his family, his loved ones, and of course of Marine whose mourning must be respected.”
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
In a statement, the National Rally paid tribute to Le Pen.
It highlighted his early years spent fighting in some of France’s colonial wars, including in Algeria, and said he was a politician who was “certainly unruly and sometimes turbulent”.
It went on to say he brought forward the issues which define modern political debate in France.
“For the National Rally, he will remain the one who, in the storms, held in his hands the small flickering flame of the French Nation,” it added.
President Emmanuel Macron also expressed his condolences in a statement, saying: “A historic figure of the far right, he played a role in the public life of our country for nearly seventy years, which is now a matter for history to judge.”
Image: Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen in 2012.
Pic: Reuters
A controversial career
Born in 1928, the son of a Breton fisherman, he was an intensely polarising figure known for his fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation.
He made Islam, and Muslim immigrants, his primary targets, blaming them for the economic and social woes of France.
His controversial statements, including Holocaust denial and his 1987 proposal to forcibly isolate people with AIDS in special facilities, led to multiple convictions and strained his political alliances, including with his own daughter.
Accusations of racism followed him, and he was tried, convicted and fined for contesting war crimes after declaring that Nazi gas chambers were “merely a detail” of World War Two history.
“I stand by this because I believe it is the truth,” he said in 2015 when asked if he regretted the comment.
He had 11 prior convictions, including for violence against a public official and antisemitic hate speech.
His death comes as his daughter faces a potential prison term, and ban on running for political office, if convicted in an embezzling trial currently underway.
She was thousands of miles away in the French territory of Mayotte, inspecting the aftermath of Cyclone Chido at the time of her father’s death.
Le Pen himself was exempted from prosecution over health grounds in the high-profile trial.
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Image: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Image: Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.