By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
AIT LIVEAIT LIVEAIT LIVE
  • Live TV
  • Politics
  • National News
  • Business
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Global
  • Videos
Font ResizerAa
Font ResizerAa
AIT LIVEAIT LIVE
Search AIT
  • Live TV
  • Politics
  • National News
  • Business
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Global
  • Videos
Follow US

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Founder Of The French Far Right, Dies Aged 96

Last updated: January 7, 2025 3:55 pm
5 months ago Agency Reports
Share
3 Min Read
AIT IMAGES 6 2
Jean Marie Le Pen

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party who tapped into working-class concerns over immigration and globalisation and built a career on provocative rhetoric that many saw as racist and xenophobic, has died aged 96. 

His death was confirmed by his daughter Marine Le Pen’s political party, National Rally (Rassemblement National). 

Jean-Marie Le Pen spent his life fighting, whether as a soldier in France’s colonial wars, as a founder of the far-right National Front party, for which he contested five presidential elections, or in feuds with his daughters and ex-wife, often conducted publicly and furiously. 

Kapetanakis pays between $3,000 and $3,900 a month on power. Controversy was Le Pen’s constant companion: accusations of racism and antisemitism dogged the National Front from when he co-founded the party in 1972. 

He was tried, convicted, and fined in 1996 for contesting war crimes after declaring that the Nazi gas chambers were “merely a detail” of World War Two history and that the Nazi occupation of France was “not especially inhumane”. 

Those comments provoked outrage in France, where police had rounded up thousands of Jews who were deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Commenting on Le Pen’s death, President Emmanuel Macron said: “A historical 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.” 

A populist and fiery orator, Le Pen helped rewrite the parameters of French politics in a career spanning 40 years that, riding waves of voter discontent and harnessing discontent over immigration and job security, in some ways heralded Donald Trump’s rise to the White House. 

He reached a presidential election run-off in 2002 but lost by a landslide to Jacques Chi as voters backed a mainstream conservative rather than bring the far right to power for the first time since Nazi collaborators ruled in the 1940s.   

Le Pen was the scourge of the European Union, which he saw as a supranational project usurping the powers of nation-states, tapping the kind of resentment felt by many Britons who later voted to leave the EU.   

(Editor: Oloyede Oworu)

Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Email Print

RSS APO Group – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa

  • Breaking News: African Leadership Magazine Announces Winners for the 2025 African Business Leadership Awards (ABLA) May 31, 2025
  • Minister and Tunisian Foreign Minister discuss cooperation May 31, 2025
  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff Conclude Article IV Discussions and Reach Staff-Level Agreement on the Third Review of the Extended Credit Facility for Ethiopia May 30, 2025
  • Greater Luwero Roadside Market Vendors Tipped on Household Income as President Museveni Offers Them More Financial Support May 30, 2025
  • Curtain falls on African Development Bank Group 2025 Annual Meetings, New President Elected May 30, 2025

Trending

aitlive 9
Breaking: INEC admits glitch in results transmission as Court Reserves Judgement In Atiku’s Petition Against Tinubu, electoral body
2023 Elections Headlines
aitlive 1 19 1
Nigeria Air: MD Confirms Unveiled Aircraft Was Hired Ethiopia Flight
Local
LABOUR PARTY
Breaking: LP And Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, Get Court Permission To Inspect Forensic Materials
2023 Elections
AIT-IMAGES - US House Republicans
US House Republicans authorize Biden impeachment inquiry
World
PETER OBI
Drama in court as judges order Peter Obi’s legal team to go home
Headlines

Section

  • Headlines
  • Local
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Crime
  • Education
  • Health
  • Entertainment

Programmes

  • Kakaaki
  • Focus Nigeria
  • Democracy Today
  • People Politics and Power
  • News Hour
  • AIT Reports
  • World News
  • Moneyline With Nancy
  • Jigsaw

About Us

  • About AIT
  • Our History
  • Our Awards
  • Our Values
  • Privacy Policy


Follow US
© AIT.LIVE. All Rights Reserved.
Join Us!

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news, podcasts etc..

THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS HEADLINE AND EVENT OF THE DAY

Subscribe to our mailing list to receive daily news update direct in your inbox!

Zero spam, Unsubscribe at any time.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?