Over 1,000 people attended a memorial ceremony Thursday in central Paris for the founder of France’s main far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died last week at the age of 96.The “mass for the repose of the soul” at Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâce church took place under tight security,

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s main far-right party and a polarizing figure in French politics, is being buried in a private family ceremony in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer in Brittany.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded France's far-right National Front party, died at 96 years old. Le Pen was a controversial and confrontational figure.

Le Pen was convicted numerous times of antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence. But the nativist ideas that propelled his popularity remain ascendant in today's France and beyond.

More than 1,000 people attended a memorial ceremony on Thursday in central Paris for the founder of France’s main far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier in January aged 96. The “mass for the repose of the soul” at Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grace church took place under tight security,

Jean-Marie Le Pen espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric that landed him in legal trouble in France, where Holocaust denial is illegal.

Le Pen - an unrepentant extremist on race, gender and immigration - founded the far-right National Front in 1972.

Once called the 'most hated man in France', Le Pen maintained that his ideas were simply 'ahead of their time'

The church Notre-Dame du Val de Grace, in Paris, has been the scene of the tribute with a religious ceremony to the founder of the French National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died last Tuesday at the age of 96.

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