Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party, 94, was rushed to hospital on Saturday night, French media reported.

Mr Le Pen complained of feeling unwell and exhausted while at his home in Rueil-Malmaison, west of Paris, the online edition of Le Point magazine reported.

He may have suffered a heart attack, the magazine added, citing a friend of the far-right veteran of French politics and other sources, which it did not name.

According to information from the television network BFMTV and a publication of the newspaper Le Figaro, the doctors describe his health condition as “serious”. The French Agency, however, spoke of a “mild” heart attack.

Despite his advanced age and the fact that he has been retired from active politics for years, the five-time unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of France retains influence on the French right and far-right. The co-founder of the National Front in 1972 was its head for almost four decades. Marin’s daughter inherited the faction’s leadership in 2011, changed its name to National Alarm and attempted to broaden its appeal, to “demonetize” it.

She expelled her father from the party in 2015, due to his repeated statements in which he in particular downplayed the Holocaust. Jean-Marie Le Pen fought hard against her and continues to bitterly face his daughter’s decision, which he accuses of “betrayal”.

He also declares that he is unrepentant about his incredible positions over the years, above all about the Holocaust (“a detail of history”), about racism (according to him, there is “race inequality”), about the Nazi military occupation of France (“wasn’t particularly inhuman”)…

Marine Le Pen, the youngest of the three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen – once a legionnaire in Indochina (1953) and Algeria (1957) – came second in the 2022 presidential election (41.5%), in which he faced Emmanuel Macron, and dreams of taking the presidency in the next election.