Jean-Marie Le Pen in hospital due to medical emergency

The 94-year-old suddenly complained of severe exhaustion on Saturday at his home in the town of Rueil-Malmaison, west of Paris, the weekly magazine “Le Point” wrote. The reason for this could be heart problems, it said, citing a friend of the political veteran and other sources not named.

The news channel BFMTV and the newspaper “Le Figaro” also reported on Le Pen’s admission to a hospital in the capital region. According to BFMTV, the doctors assess his health condition as “serious”.

Despite his advanced age and the fact that he retired from active politics years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen still enjoys influence on the French right. He co-founded the National Front in 1972 and led it for nearly four decades. During this time, he transformed the FN from a right-wing splinter group into a serious political force, using pithy provocations to create anti-immigrant sentiment.

His daughter Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from him in 2011 and has since been trying to make the party eligible for election by taking a more moderate stance among center-right and center voters.

The right-wing populist broke politically with her father after he repeatedly thwarted her strategy. The FN finally expelled Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 after he repeatedly downplayed the Nazi murder of Jews in gas chambers as a “historical detail” of World War II. He bitterly fought back, accusing his daughter of “treason” and fighting a long-standing public feud with her.

In court, he claimed that he was initially allowed to keep the title of honorary president. However, this was later removed. A year after losing the 2017 presidential election, Marine Le Pen renamed the party Rassemblement National. (sda/dpa)