Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right provocateur whose ugly nationalism lives on

Then far-right National Front presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen addresses the crowd in 2002 during a political rally in Paris. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

The first time Jean-Marie Le Pen stood in a French presidential election, in 1974, he won 0.75% of the vote. Half a century later, his daughter Marine leads the largest party in France’s parliament and could well become its next head of state.

Le Pen senior, who died on Tuesday aged 96, was for decades the far-right bogeyman of French politics, an eternal provocateur whose unabashed racism and antisemitism suggested he was much more interested in stoking outrage than in wielding power.