Jean-Marie Le Pen, the trailblazing leader of France's far right, died on Tuesday, aged 96.
Le Pen, who had been in a care facility in Garches, France, for several weeks, died "surrounded by his loved ones", his family said in a statement.
The former leader of the far-right National Front party shook the French political establishment when he unexpectedly reached the presidential election run-off vote against Jacques Chirac in 2002, before losing in a landslide, as voters chose to back the mainstream conservatives rather than bring the far right to power for the first time since Nazi collaborators ruled in the 1940s.
Le Pen’s co-founders in 1972 included two past members of the Waffen SS. He was himself repeatedly taken to court accused of inciting racial hatred and was tried, convicted and fined in 1996 for contesting war crimes after declaring that the Nazi gas chambers were "merely a detail" of Second World War history. The comment led to outrage in France, where thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps during the war.
The party, now named the National Rally (RN), released a statement on Tuesday that said with Le Pen's death, “a page has been turned in French political history and, given the continent-wide drive he gave to the fight for nations, in that of European political history”.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office also issued a statement expressing condolences to Le Pen’s family and friends, noting that he “played a role in the public life of our country for almost 70 years, which will now be judged by history.”
An unabashed nationalist, Le Pen was the scourge of the EU, which he saw as usurping the powers of nations, tapping into the kind of resentment that led to Britain voting to leave the bloc.
The former paratrooper, who led the party from 1972 to 2011, was succeeded by his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who has since run for the French presidency three times.
Le Parisien reported that Ms Le Pen had learnt of her father's death on the plane travelling back from Mayotte, where she had been since Sunday. It said the journalists who were accompanying her, alerted by AFP, warned her entourage during a technical stopover in Nairobi, Kenya. She then isolated herself to make several calls before the plane took off again.
In 2015, Ms Le Pen threw him out of the party he had founded, seeing him as an impediment to extending the movement’s support. By that time, many of his anti-immigrant, anti-European Union views had seeped into French right-wing discourse.
In 2018, she renamed the party National Rally to shed its “demonised” image and expand its electoral appeal, turning it into one of the country's main political forces. It showed strong gains in last year's European Parliament elections and became the largest single party in a subsequent general election in France.
Le Pen's death came as his daughter is on trial on charges of embezzlement. If found guilty, Ms Le Pen could be jailed and banned from running for political office. However, last month, Ms Le Pen warned France's new government its days were numbered as she predicted an early election that could give her a shot at power. That moment would come "as soon as the institutions allow it ... very soon, in a few months at most", she said.
Jordan Bardella, RN party chief and the right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, said in a carefully worded tribute that Le Pen had "always served France".
"As a soldier in the French army in Indochina and Algeria, as a tribune of the people in the National Assembly and the European Parliament, he always served France and defended its identity and sovereignty," Mr Bardella said on X. "Today I am thinking with sadness of his family, his loved ones and of course Marine, whose mourning must be respected."
Among other tributes on Tuesday, Bruno Retailleau, France's Interior Minister, said his death marked the turning of a page of French political history. "Whatever one's opinion of Jean-Marie Le Pen, he will undoubtedly have left his mark on his era," he added.
Florian Philippot, former vice president of the National Front, said: "Whatever one's opinion of Jean-Marie Le Pen, he embodies a figure of French political life that lasted for years and decades and who addressed certain topics which today are at the heart of current events."
France's Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou, said courting controversy was Le Pen's "favourite weapon" and added: "We knew, by fighting him, what a fighter he was."
Jean-Luc Melenchon, chairman of the far-left France Unbowed party, said respect for the dignity of the dead and the grief of their loved ones "does not erase the right to judge their actions".
"Those of Jean-Marie Le Pen remain unbearable," he added. "The fight against the man is over. The fight against the hatred, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that he spread continues."
