Jean-Marie Le Pen: French far-right leader dies aged 96
A political hero to some in France - a far right villain to many others, Jean-Marie Le Penn - has died at the age 96 after fifty combative, controversial years in French public life, as ITV News Europe Editor James Mates reports.
Far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died aged 96, national media reports.
Le Pen was the co-founder and long-serving leader of the Front National party, which was rebranded as National Rally by his daughter, Marine Le Pen.
A polarising figure in French politics, Le Pen was known for his fiery rhetoric against immigration and multi-culturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation.
His controversial statements, including Holocaust denial, led to multiple convictions and strained his political alliances.
Le Pen, who once reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election, was eventually estranged from his daughter Marine.
In 2011, she rebranded the party to shed its "demonised" image and expand its electoral appeal, culminating in her own presidential race successes.
Despite his exclusion from the party in 2015, Le Pen's divisive legacy endures, marking decades of French political history and shaping the trajectory of the far-right.
Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Marine Le Pen as President of the National Rally in 2022, said in a post on X, Jean-Marie had "always served France" and "defended its identity and sovereignty".
French Prime Minister François Bayrou also paid tribute in a post on X in which he said anyone who fought Le Pen "knew what a fighter he was".
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Eric Zemmour, a far-right nationalist posted that "beyond the controversies, beyond the scandals, what we will remember about him in the coming decades is that he was among the first to alert France to the existential threats that awaited it".
Some on the opposite side of the political spectrum have criticised vales Le Pen stood for.
The leader of the radical left France Unbowed (LKI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said the actions of Jean-Marie Le Pen "remain unbearable" and that "respect for the dignity of the dead and the grief of their loved ones does not erase the right to judge their actions".
"The fight against the man is over. The fight against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that he spread continues" said Mélenchon on X.
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