​Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French far-right National Front party, died at 96.

Paris – Jean-Marie Le Pen, the historic leader of France’s far-right political movement, died on Tuesday at the age of 96, the French news agency AFP reported, citing his family. Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for several weeks, died Tuesday “surrounded by his loved ones,” the family said in a statement.

His daughter Marine Le Pen is one of the most senior figures in the party, now called the National Assembly, which has seen a surge in support in recent years. The current president of the party, which bears the French acronym RN, Jordan Bardella, confirmed the death of Le Pen in statement posted on social media on Tuesday.

He always served France, defended its identity and sovereignty, Bardella said. “Today I think with sadness of his family, his loved ones and of course Marine whose grief should be respected.”

In 2002, Le Pen shocked France when she reached the second round of the presidential election on a firm anti-immigration platform. He was often accused of racism and anti-Semitism, and he infamously dismissed the Holocaust as a historical detail.

His daughter took over the leadership of the party in 2011 and ousted him four years later, seeking to distance her movement from his extremist reputation. The RN made strong gains in last year’s European Parliament elections and became the single largest party in the French general election that followed.

Marine Le Pen said the National Rally “virtually wiped out” President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist power base in the first round of elections over the summer, taking almost a third of the vote in a strong rebuke Macron’s troubled government.

She has a seat in the parliament and is the leader of the RN bloc in the legislature.

The the new French government formed after the summer elections — after considerable haggling — is center-right, and although it does not include any members of the RN, the far-right, anti-immigration movement founded by Le Pen now has enough seats in parliament to have a significant influence on the country’s politics.