Jean Marie Le Pen, founder of the French Front National, dies at the age of 96

He founder of the French National FrontJean-Marie Le Pen has died at the age of 96.

The far-right party he founded, the National Front (FN), decided to expel its co-founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2015 over his anti-Semitic and denialist statements.

Deep-rooted anti-communist, colonialist and anti-migration extremist, defender of the collaborationist government. His extreme statements caused him to be expelled from his own party that he founded in 1972 in 2015. He even disowned his daughter Marine Le Pen for “submitting to the system.”

Wash candidate for the French presidency five timesbut he has not held any responsible position since leaving his seat in the European Parliament in 2019. He continued to participate as a presenter or commentator on a talk show.

In 2018, at the age of 90, he published a memoir that began with gloating about his bad reputation.

In 2008, the Paris Criminal Court convicted him of complicity in the apology of war crimes and the denial of a crime against humanity to a three-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros for saying in a 2005 interview that the Nazi occupation of France “was not particularly inhuman”.

Previously, in 2005, he was fined for comments against immigrants and in 1998 for defending racial inequality. In 1997 he was convicted for saying the gas chambers were a ‘detail of history’.

National Rally president Jordan Bardella has mourned the death of Jean Marie Le Pen, a man who “always served France and defended its identity and sovereignty.” He has expressed his condolences to the family, especially his partner Marine Le Pen, through social networks.