PARIS, Jan 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died Tuesday aged 96, 
was the far-right bogeyman of French politics, infamously dismissing the 
Holocaust as a detail of history and spending half a century whipping up 
anger over immigration.

The co-founder of the far-right National Front -- later renamed the National 
Rally -- was eventually booted out of the party by his daughter Marine for 
anti-Semitism.

A former paratrooper, Le Pen sent shock waves through France in 2002 when he 
made it to the second round of the presidential election, which was won by 
Jacques Chirac.

Le Pen, who seemed more at ease in the role of provocateur than would-be 
president, appeared as surprised as everyone else by his spectacular 
breakthrough.

Years later, he boasted that the rise of the far right around Europe showed 
his ideas had gone mainstream.

Born in the port of La Trinite-sur-Mer in the western Brittany region on June 
20, 1928, he was the son of a seamstress and a fisherman.

His father's fishing boat hit a mine during World War II, killing him -- a 
loss that hit the young Le Pen hard.

- Colonial war junkie -

Anxious to see action, Le Pen volunteered for service in two wars in French 
colonies -- the First Indochina War (1946-1954) in Vietnam, and then in 
Algeria (1954-1962).

Shortly after his return from Algeria he entered politics and became France's 
youngest MP at 27 when he was elected to parliament in 1956.

But he was unable to resist the lure of the battlefield.

Later that year, he took part in the Franco-British military expedition to 
seize the Suez Canal, and a few years later joined forces fighting to keep 
Algeria French.

As in Vietnam, he was infuriated to see France losing its colonial 
possessions, accusing World War II hero Charles de Gaulle of "helping make 
France small" by granting Algeria its independence.

A consummate orator and trained lawyer, he tapped into the anger of 
rightwingers nostalgic for the empire and French settlers forced to flee the 
North African country.

The eye patch he wore for many years added to his pugilistic air.

Years later Le Pen revealed that he lost his eye driving a tent peg into a 
hole, and not, as was widely thought, in a brawl.

- Apartment bombed -

In 1972, he co-founded the National Front (FN), billed as a "national, social 
and popular" party, and two years later made his first run for president.

The early years were tumultuous, with his unabashed racism and anti-Semitism 
striking a raw nerve in a country still haunted by the collaborationist Vichy 
regime during World War II. 

 

In 1976, a bomb ripped through the Paris apartment building where Le Pen 
lived with his wife Pierrette and three daughters, slightly injuring six 
people but sparing the Le Pens.

Eight years later, Pierrette walked out of the marriage, resurfacing shortly 
afterwards to pose nearly nude for Playboy magazine in a French maid's outfit 
-- her pointed answer to her husband's advice to get a job as a cleaner.

The FN's first big electoral breakthrough came in the mid-1980s, when the 
party won 35 seats in parliament.

But its fortunes fluctuated sharply over the next two decades, partly a 
result of changes in the election system that favoured big parties.

Le Pen's message remained unchanged, however, with immigration, the political 
elite and the European Union all taking a bashing -- even though he himself 
was a member of the European Parliament for over 30 years.

In 2007, Le Pen maintained that Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian 
immigrant who went on to win the presidency, was not sufficiently French to 
hold the office.

He repeatedly warned that African immigration would "submerge" the country 
and claimed the Nazi occupation of the northern half of France in World War 
II was "not particularly inhumane".

But it was comments on the Holocaust -- which he repeatedly called a "detail" 
of history -- that caused the most shock.

The remark earned the politician nicknamed the "Devil of the Republic" and 
one in a string of convictions for anti-Semitism and racism.

It also drove a wedge between him and his daughter Marine, who embarked on a 
mission to clean up the FN's image after taking over the party leadership in 
2011.

She called the process "dediabolisation" -- "de-demonization" -- in an 
apparent nod to the legacy left by her father.

- What's in a name? -

Fours years of uneasy political cohabitation between father and daughter 
ended in a blazing row in 2015, when the younger Le Pen kicked him out of the 
party for his Holocaust remarks.

The ultimate humiliation for Le Pen senior came when Marine ditched the 
National Front brand in early 2018.

"She would have to commit suicide to cut her links with me," he had told the 
Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

Further ignominy was in store for him, however.

His adored granddaughter, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a telegenic former MP 
tipped as a future leader of the far right, also distanced herself from the 
family brand.

She dropped Le Pen from her name on her social media accounts, becoming 
simply Marion Marechal.

"Marion perhaps thinks that it is too much of weight to carry," her 
grandfather grumbled.

His former party, now the National Rally, has since made significant inroads 
in both European and French politics under Marine Le Pen.

It showed strong gains in this year's European Parliament elections, and 
became the largest single party in a subsequent general election in France.