PARIS — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front party who tapped into blue-collar anger over immigration and globalisation and revelled in minimising the Holocaust, died on Tuesday (Jan 7) aged 96.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Marine Le Pen's political party, National Rally (Rassemblement National).

Jean-Marie Le Pen spent his life fighting — as a soldier in France's colonial wars, as a founder in 1972 of the National Front, for which he contested five presidential elections, or in feuds with his daughters and ex-wife, often conducted publicly.

Controversy was Le Pen's constant companion: his multiple convictions for inciting racial hatred and condoning war crimes dogged the National Front.

His declaration that the Nazi gas chambers were "merely a detail" of World War Two history and that the Nazi occupation of France was "not especially inhumane" were for many people repulsive.

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