His unexpected progress to the second round in the 2002 presidential election—when he was beaten in a landslide by incumbent Jacques Chirac—left its mark on French public life, and the "21st of April" is now a frequently used expression in France.

He was the president of the Association des Anciens Combattants, a fisherman, and a municipal councillor of La Trinité-sur-Mer, a small seaside village in Brittany.

[11] He then entered the faculty of law in Paris, and started to sell the monarchist Action Française's newspaper, Aspects de la France, in the street.

[13] In 1953, a year before the beginning of the Algerian War, he contacted President Vincent Auriol, who approved Le Pen's proposed volunteer disaster relief project after a flood in the Netherlands.

[citation needed] Elected to parliament under the Poujadist banner, Le Pen voluntarily reengaged himself for two to three months in the Foreign Legion.

[13] Le Pen also criticised President Charles de Gaulle for granting Algeria independence, accusing him of "helping make France small".

Le Pen insisted on the rehabilitation of the Collaborationists, declaring that: Was General de Gaulle braver than Marshal Pétain in the occupied zone?

In 1988 he lost his reelection bid for the National Assembly in Bouches-du-Rhône's 8th constituency when he was defeated in the second round by Socialist Marius Masse [fr].

This was a major political event, both nationally and internationally, as it was the first time someone with such far-right views had qualified for the second round of a French presidential election.

There was a widespread stirring of national public opinion as virtually the entire French political spectrum from the centre-right to the left united in fierce opposition to Le Pen's ideas.

[33] Le Pen was then defeated by a large margin in the second round, when incumbent president Jacques Chirac obtained 82% of the votes, thus securing the biggest majority in the history of the Fifth Republic.

After the Irish "No" vote, Le Pen addressed the French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the European Parliament, accusing him of furthering the agenda of a "cabal of international finance and free market fanatics".

The elder Le Pen was a persistent problem for his daughter as she tried to smooth over the overt racism and xenophobia of the party's past.

[42][43] A French court decided in June 2015 to cancel his suspension; although the members of the party were to hold a vote to accept or reject a whole series of measures aiming at changing the National Front's status, including Le Pen's honorary presidency.

On 10 July another French court ruled to suspend the vote two days beforehand and urged the party to organize an in-person Congress, as Le Pen sued the National Front again.

[44] The FN then decided, on 29 July, to count the votes on the suppression of Le Pen's Honorary Presidency, which showed that 94% of the members were in favour of this decision.

[45][46] However, due to the legal challenges to the FN's removal of Le Pen as its honorary president, he continued to officially hold the position.

'[52] He confirmed he would support his granddaughter Marion Maréchal-Le Pen for the next regional elections and that he wanted to influence the National Front's ideology with his association.

[13] Lambert's will provided 30 million francs (equivalent to €19,000,000 in 2022) to Le Pen, as well as his opulent three-storey 11-room mansion at 8 Parc de Montretout, Saint-Cloud, in the western suburbs of Paris.

[66] In November 2024, he was hospitalized for two weeks for medical examinations related to old age, and his family expressed concerns about his general state of health.

[66][70] His daughter Marine, who succeeded him at the helm of the National Front, learned about his death from journalists on a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya, while travelling from Mayotte to Paris.

[73] President Emmanuel Macron said that history would decide the legacy of Le Pen, while prime minister François Bayrou said "We knew, by fighting him, what a fighter he was".

[74] In Belgium, Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken praised a "founding father" of European nationalism.

A Paris court found in February 2005 that his verbal criticisms, such as remarks disparaging Muslims in a 2003 Le Monde interview, were "inciting racial hatred",[79] and he was fined €10,000 and ordered to pay an additional €5,000 in damages to the Ligue des droits de l'homme (League for Human Rights).

In June 1999, a Munich court found this statement to be "minimizing the Holocaust, which caused the deaths of six million Jews," and convicted and fined Le Pen for his remarks.

"[101] Le Pen was often nicknamed the "Menhir", due to his "granitic nature" as he was perceived as someone who did not give way to pressure or who could not be easily knocked down.

[115] Le Pen was often described as one of the most flamboyant and charismatic orators in Europe, whose speech blended folksy humour, crude attacks and rhetorical finesse.

[123] Some of Le Pen's statements led other far-right groups, such as the Austrian Freedom Party,[124] and some National Front supporters, to distance themselves from him.

Controversial Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has often been accused of being far-right, also criticized Le Pen, stating "we'll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy".

Mégret wanted to emulate Gianfranco Fini's success in Italy by making it possible for right-wing parties to ally themselves with the Front, but claimed that Le Pen's attitude and outrageous speech prevented this.