Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen (June 20, 1928 - ) is a French politician. A veteran of the French paratroops in Indochina (1953) and Algeria (1957), Le Pen started his political career in Paris in 1956. In 1972, he founded the extreme right-wing party Front National. The electoral results of the Front National have been on the rise since the municipal elections of 1983.
In 1984 and 1999 Le Pen won a seat in the European Parliament. In 1992 and 1998 he was elected to the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. He has been the most successful in the South of France. Here economic development has been the slowest and tension with especially the Arab community the most widespread.
Le Pen ran in the French presidential elections in 1974, 1988, 1995 and 2002, on a platform widely considered xenophobic, nationalistic and extremist. In the presidential elections of 2002 Le Pen obtained 17,71% of the votes. This was enough to qualify him for the second round, as a result of the bad results of the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin. It was the first time an extreme-right candidate qualified for the second round of the French presidential elections.
He has made remarks which are widely considered to be anti-Semitic. It is also etablished that he practiced torture in Algeria. This fact was published by "Le Canard Enchainé" and "Libération" and by Michel Rocard (ex-prime minister) on TV (TF-1 1993). Le Pen sued the papers and Michel Rocard. This affair ended in 2000 when the "Cour de cassation" (French supreme jurisdiction) concluded that it was legitimate to remember this fact. War crimes committed during the Algerian War of Independence are amnestied in France so there should be no further judicial issues.
See also : Politics of France
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