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Jean Louis Marie Le Pen (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ maʁi lə pɛn]; born 20 June 1928) is a French politician who served as President of the right-wing National Front from 1972 to 2011. He also served as Honorary President of the National Front from 2011 to 2015. Le Pen graduated from the faculty of law in Paris in 1949. After his time in the military, he studied political science and law at Panthéon-Assas University. Le Pen focuses on issues related to immigration to France, the European Union, traditional culture and values, law and order, and France's high rate of unemployment. His progression in the 1980s is known as the "lepénisation of minds" due to its noticeable effect on mainstream political opinion. His controversial speeches and his integration into public life have made him a figure who polarizes opinion, considered the "Devil of the Republic" among his opponents or the "last samurai in politics" among his supporters. He has been convicted for statements downplaying the Holocaust, and fined for incitement to discrimination regarding remarks made about Muslims in France. His longevity in politics and his five attempts to become President of France have made him a major figure in French political life. His unexpected progress to the second round in the 2002 presidential election—where he would lose in a landslide to incumbent Jacques Chirac—left its mark on French public life, and the "21st of April" is now a frequently used expression in France. A former Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Le Pen served as the Honorary President of the National Front from 2011 to 2015. He was expelled from the party by his daughter Marine in 2015, after new controversial statements. Life and career Early life Jean Louis Marie Le Pen was the only son of Jean Le Pen (1901–1942). Jean Le Pen was born in Brittany, like his ancestors, and had started work at the age of 13 on a transatlantic vessel. He was the president of L'Association des Ancients Combattants and Councilor of La Trinité-sur-Mer. Jean-Marie Le Pen's mother, Anne-Marie Hervé (1904–1965), was a seamstress and also of local ancestry. Le Pen was born on 20 June 1928 in La Trinité-sur-Mer, a small seaside village in Brittany, the son of Anne Marie Hervé and Jean Le Pen, a fisherman. He was orphaned as an adolescent (Ward of the Nation, brought up by the state), when his father's boat La Persévérance was blown up by a mine in 1942. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and studied at the Jesuit high school François Xavier in Vannes, then at the lycée of Lorient. In November 1944, aged 16, he was turned down (because of his age) by Colonel Henri de La Vaissière (then representative of the Communist Youth) when he attempted to join the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). 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. He was repeatedly convicted of assault and battery (coups et blessures). Le Pen started his political career as the head of the student union in Toulouse. He became president of the Association Corporative des étudiants en droit, an association of law students whose main occupation was to engage in street brawls against the "Cocos" (communists). He was excluded from this organisation in 1951. After his time in the military, he studied political science and law at Panthéon-Assas University. His graduate thesis, submitted in 1971 by him and Jean-Loup Vincent, was titled Le courant anarchiste en France depuis 1945 or ("The anarchist movement in France since 1945"). Military service After receiving his law degree, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion. He arrived in Indochina after the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu, which had been lost by France and which prompted French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France to put an end to the Indochina war at the Geneva Conference. Le Pen was then sent to Suez in 1956, but arrived only after the cease-fire. 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. Within two days, there were 40 volunteers from his university, a group that would later help victims of an earthquake in Italy. In Paris in 1956, he was elected to the National Assembly as a member of Pierre Poujade's UDCA populist party. Le Pen has often presented himself as the youngest member of the Assembly, but a young communist, André Chène, 27 years old and half a year younger, was elected in the same year. In 1957, Le Pen became the General Secretary of the National Front of Combatants, a veterans' organization, as well as the first French politician to nominate a Muslim candidate, Ahmed Djebbour, an Algerian, elected in 1957 as deputy of Paris. The next year, following his break with Poujade, he was reelected to the National Assembly as a member of the Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP) party, led by Antoine Pinay. Le Pen claimed that he had lost his left eye when he was savagely beaten during the 1958 election campaign. Testimonies suggest that he was only wounded in the right eye and did not lose it. He lost the sight in his left eye years later, due to an illness. (Popular belief is that he wears a glass eye.) During the 1950s, Le Pen took a close interest in the Algerian War (1954–62) and the French defence budget. Elected deputy of the French Parliament under the Poujadist banner, Le Pen voluntarily reengaged himself for two to three months in the French Foreign Legion. He was then sent to Algeria (1957) as an intelligence officer. He has been accused of having engaged in torture. Le Pen has denied these accusations, although he admitted knowing of its use. Far-right politics Le Pen directed the 1965 presidential campaign of far-right candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, who obtained 5.19% of the votes. He insisted on the rehabilitation of the Collaborationists, declaring that: Was General de Gaulle more brave than Marshal Pétain in the occupied zone? This isn't sure. It was much easier to resist in London than to resist in France. In 1962, Le Pen lost his seat in the Assembly. He created the Serp (Société d'études et de relations publiques) firm, a company involved in the music industry, which specialized in historical recordings and sold recordings of the choir of the CGT trade-union and songs of the Popular Front, as well as Nazi marches. National Front In 1972, Le Pen founded the Front National (FN) party. He then ran in the 1974 presidential election, obtaining 0.74% of the vote. In 1976, his Parisian flat was dynamited (he lived at that time in his mansion of Montretout in Saint-Cloud). The crime was never solved. Le Pen then failed to obtain the 500 signatures from "grand electors" (grands électeurs, mayors, etc.) necessary to present himself in the 1981 presidential election, won by the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), François Mit.... Discover the Jean Christophe Tixier popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jean Christophe Tixier books.