For years, the far-right National Rally tried to distance itself from Mr. Le Pen’s racist and antisemitic remarks. But after his death Tuesday, it hailed him as a visionary.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s main far-right party, has died at 96. Anti-immigration and nationalist ideas that propelled his decades of popularity remain ascendant in the country, across Europe and beyond.

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.

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 aged 96.

Demonstrators were seen setting off fireworks and chanting slogans in Republic Square on Tuesday. Earlier that day, Le Pen, the founder of the National Front party, died at the age of 96.

Jean-Marie Le Pen espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric that landed him in legal trouble in France, where Holocaust denial is illegal.