Jean-Marie Le Pen, French Far-Right Leader, Passes Away at 96

Political Career: 

After years spent running on the fringes of politics, Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked France and the world in 2002 when he made it into the two-candidate second round of a French presidential election — and then was crushed 82 per cent to 18 per cent by Jacques Chirac. That was the peak of his career. Many low points came during that time, including more than a score of convictions for Holocaust denial, inciting racial hatred and homophobia.

As an only child of a fisherman and a seamstress, Jean-Marie Le Pen was raised by his father and mother. Jean’s father died when he was 14 after a mine caught up in his net exploded. When he turned 16, he asked to join the military but was refused because he was still too young. He then became part of the parachute regiment of the French Foreign Legion, participating in the Indo-China War and the Algerian War of Independence, where he was implicated in torturing detained persons.

In 1962, Le Pen told Combat newspaper, “I’ve nothing to hide. We were afflicted because it had to be accomplished. When you get somebody who produced 20 bombs that could be exploding from one minute to the other, and he will not talk, you have got to use unique ways that make him so.” Later, Le Pen refused a further charge of suffering in Algeria, demanding it was one of a left-wing “action by the administration for him to remain negated.

He first became an MP in 1956 and co-founded the Front National in 1972. After serving as an MP until 1988, he became an MEP in 2004, operating until 2019. In addition, he served as a regional councillor in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur between 2010 and 2015. With his first wife, Pierrette, he had three daughters, Marine being the youngest. As of now, he is said to be very close to his granddaughter, Marion Maréchal, whose mother is his middle child, Yann Le Pen. Jany, his second wife, was married to him in 1991.