PARIS >> Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right National Front known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, died Tuesday. He was 96.

One of the most polarizing figures in French politics, Le Pen made Islam and Muslim immigrants his primary target, blaming them for economic and social woes. He also repeatedly denied the Holocaust and was convicted multiple times of antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence.

Despite those convictions and eventually being politically ostracized, the nativist ideas that propelled his decades of popularity — encapsulated in slogans such as “French People First” — are ascendant in today’s France, across Europe and beyond.

Le Pen — who reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election that Jacques Chirac went on to win in a landslide — was eventually estranged from his daughter Marine Le Pen. She renamed his National Front party, ousted him and transformed it into one of France’s most powerful political forces while distancing herself from her father.

Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, as the party is now known, confirmed Le Pen’s death in a post on social media platform X. Bardella’s unusually warm tribute described Le Pen as a “voice of the people” who “always served France.”

The post appeared to blur the boundary the rebranded party had sought to establish between its firebrand founder and its more polished direction under Marine Le Pen.

President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, offered his condolences to Le Pen’s family and friends in an uncharacteristically short statement issued by the presidential palace.

“A historic figure of the far right, he played a role in the public life of our country for almost 70 years, which is now a matter for history to judge,” the statement read.

Marine Le Pen, thousands of miles away in the French territory of Mayotte, was inspecting the aftermath of destructive Cyclone Chido when her father died.

His death came at a crucial time for his daughter. She is considered a leading potential contender for the next presidential election in 2027, if she’s not banned from running for office in an embezzlement case.

A former paratrooper and Foreign Legionnaire who fought to maintain French colonial rule in Indochina and Algeria, Jean-Marie Le Pen was a wily political strategist and gifted orator who used his charisma to captivate crowds.

“If I advance, follow me; if I die, avenge me; if I shirk, kill me,” Le Pen said at a 1990 party congress, reflecting the theatrical style that for decades fed the fervor of followers.

The portly, silver-haired son of a Breton fisherman viewed himself as a man with a mission — to keep France French under the banner of the National Front.

His statements — including Holocaust denial, racist denunciations of Muslims and immigrants, and a proposal to round up people with AIDS — shocked his critics and strained his political alliances. Le Pen routinely countered that he was simply a patriot protecting the identity of “eternal France.”

Le Penlost his left eye in 1965 while hammering a tent stake.