French far-right veteran Le Pen doing well after heart attack: daughter

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the veteran ex-leader of the far right in France, is "doing well" in hospital following a mild heart attack, his daughter and successor Marine Le Pen said Sunday.

Father and daughter in the last years underwent a major public political and personal falling out, as Marine Le Pen sought to transform the far-right into an electable and competitive force in France.

Her father, 94, who has embarrassed his youngest daughter with comments in the last years, has had frequent bouts of ill health and now only rarely speaks out in public.

He was also hospitalised in February 2022 after a similar scare.

"He is doing well and I thank all those who have enquired after his health," said Marine Le Pen, who lost out to Emmanuel Macron in the past two French presidential elections.

"I have yet to see him and will do so shortly (but) he is doing well and that is the main thing," she said.

She added that her father, hospitalised Saturday, would require some check-ups, being just a few months' shy of his 95th birthday.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who ran for president five times, sent shock waves through France in 2002 when he beat out the Socialist prime minister to make it to the run-off vote against president Jacques Chirac.

The former paratrooper was the co-founder of the National Front(FN) -- later renamed the National Rally (RN) by his daughter Marine -- and spent decades slamming immigration.

While his political fortunes fluctuated sharply over more than half a century -- his unabashed racism leading to him being dubbed the "Devil of the Republic" -- he once boasted that the rise of the far right around Europe showed his ideas had gone mainstream.

- Family fallouts -

His daughter later tried to clean up the image of the party and kicked him out in 2015 over remarks he made that the Holocaust was merely a "detail" of history.

The party has since made significant inroads in both European and French politics.

Marine Le Pen obtained a far-right record 23.15 percent of the vote in 2022 presidential elections and, while losing to Macron again in the second round, was much more competitive than in 2017.

The party won 89 seats in parliament in subsequent legislative elections, becoming the country's main opposition force in the chamber.

Meanwhile analysts say that Marine Le Pen has been one of the main beneficiaries of the crisis over Macron's pension reform, bringing her a step closer to winning the Elysee in 2027 elections.

While staunchly opposing the reform, the party has also not embraced the strikes and  protests spearheaded by the left.

In another well-publicised family spat, Marine Le Pen last year also fell out with her niece Marion Marechal, Jean-Marie Le Pen's granddaughter, after she joined the competing far-right faction of Eric Zemmour ahead of the presidential elections.

Marine Le Pen has now handed over the reins of the leadership of the RN to Jordan Bardella -- aged 27 whose partner is Nolwenn Olivier, another granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen. 

But she remains favourite to bear the standard of the RN in the 2027 elections.

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© Agence France-Presse

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