Paris
CNN
—
Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen and the defining figure of France’s postwar far-right movement, has died at the age of 96, according to French network BFMTV.
From founding the National Front party, which his daughter has taken to new heights as the National Rally party, to his election as France’s youngest lawmaker, Jean-Marie Le Pen was present at every stage of the French far right’s post-war history.
His political career spanned decades. In 1956, at the age of 27, he was elected to the French National Assembly. He then forged the National Front in 1972 with wartime Nazi collaborators and veterans of France’s colonial disasters in Algeria and then-Indochina.
In 2007, he became the oldest person to stand as a presidential candidate in what would become his fifth unsuccessful attempt. He reached his 90th birthday as a member of the European parliament – a post he retained until 2019.
Born on June 20, 1928, in the seaside village of La Trinite-sur-Mer in Brittany, his father, Jean, died in 1942 when a wartime mine blew up his fishing boat.
A monarchist in his youth, Le Pen attended law school in Paris in the 1940s and in 1954 joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as a paratrooper in Algeria and in French Indochina.
Throughout his life, he was dogged by allegations of torture in Algiers. In November 1962, he told the newspaper Combat, “I have nothing to hide. We tortured in Algeria because we had to.” Later Le Pen claimed “we” referred to the French army, not him personally.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
France
