Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right leader, dies aged 96

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right Front National, who sent shock waves through the country when he made it to the second round of the presidential election in 2002, has died aged 96.

- Kim Willsher

The former paratrooper, who led the party from 1972 to 2011, was repeatedly convicted over comments about the Holocaust, which he once dismissed as "merely a detail of history".

His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the party's leadership in 2011 and expelled him four years later, seeking to distance it from his extremist reputation and later renaming the party the National Rally (RN).

Le Pen's family said in a statement that he had been in a care facility for several weeks and had died at midday yesterday "surrounded by his loved ones".

However, it emerged that Marine Le Pen only learned of his death from reporters while flying back from the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, where she had been visiting victims of Cyclone Chido.

Sophie Dupont, a journalist with BFMTV who was on the plane with Le Pen, said the politician was told when the flight made a stop in Nairobi. "[Her] press officer didn't know. He went to tell her," Dupont said. Marine Le Pen's entourage said she would not make any immediate comment.