For years, the far-right National Rally tried to distance itself from Mr. Le Pen’s racist and antisemitic remarks. But after his death Tuesday, it hailed him as a visionary.

Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front party who tapped into blue-collar anger over immigration and globalisation and revelled in minimising the Holocaust, died on Tuesday aged 96.

FILE - French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, center, flanked by his daughter Marine Le Pen, and Bruno Gollnisch, arrives for a wreath-laying ceremony at the statue of Joan of Arc, within the party’s traditional May Day march Saturday May 1, 2010, in Paris. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)