Far-Right unifier Le Pen dead at 96

FAR-Right French politician, convicted holocaust denier and antisemite Jean-Marie Le Pen has died at 96.

- Peter Allen

The founder of the Front National party now known as the National Rally died at noon yesterday, his family confirmed.

Le Pen, expelled from the NR by his daughter Marine in 2015, after calling Nazi gas chambers "a detail of history", was one of the most influential and controversial figures in post-war French politics, He came runner-up in the 2002 presidential election with just 18% of the vote as moderates backed centre-Right candidate Jacques Chirac to keep Le Pen out.

But he had managed to unite a fragmented far-Right in the 1960s and 1970s, and tried to become head of state five times in all, gaining him masses of publicity worldwide.