Jean Marie Le-Pen has died at the age of 96.
A former paratrooper who fought in multiple conflicts, Le-Pen led France’s National Front from 1972 to 2011 and contested dozens of local and national elections.
In 2002, he made the run-off in France’s presidential election but was ultimately defeated handily by former president Jacques Chiraq.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Le Pen family said that he had been in a care facility for several weeks and passed away “surrounded by his loved ones.”
Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, took over from her father as party leader in 2011, cementing the family name in French political life.
Under her leadership, Marine rebranded the party as the National Rally and moderated its more extremist tendencies, turning it into one of the country’s most powerful political forces.
The National Rally paid tribute to their former leader on X, describing him as a “visionary” who had helped define France’s political landscape.
Their statement read:
Over six decades of active political struggle, he proved to be a visionary, introducing into public debate the major issues that now structure political life: demographics and its corollary, immigration; globalization and the decline of France; national sovereignty; and the risk of dissolution within the European Union.
For the National Rally, he will remain the one who, through the storms, held in his hands the flickering flame of the French Nation and who, with unwavering will and tenacity, made the national movement an autonomous, powerful, and free political family.
For the French, the man the people of the street readily called Jean-Marie will represent a courageous and talented politician who devoted his life to serving his homeland without faltering and tirelessly being the powerful and warm voice of the “voiceless.”
To some, he will also stand as a figure carved from granite—a “Menhir” who at times relished being controversial.
For the generations devoted to the nation, both present and future, he will be remembered as an intrepid and indomitable fighter in service of a proud and ambitious vision of France. For patriots across continents, whose dignity he defended tirelessly, he will remain an emblematic defender of the people.
Communiqué de presse – Le Rassemblement National rend hommage à Jean-Marie Le Pen :
Jean Marie Le Pen nous a quittés.
Avec lui se tourne une page de l’histoire politique française et, compte tenu de l’impulsion continentale qu’il donna au combat pour les Nations, de l’histoire… pic.twitter.com/3R8t3dxgSd
— Rassemblement National (@RNational_off) January 7, 2025
Le Pen is survived by his three children, as well as his many grandchildren.
Among them is his granddaughter, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who serves as a Member of the European Parliament for Eric Zemmour’s populist Reconquest party.
