Marseilles (AFP)
The former mayor of Toulon, Jean-Marie Le Chevallier, among the first Front National mayors elected in France in 1995, is dead, his successor LR Hubert Falco and a regional councilor of the National Rally said on Saturday.
"Jean-Marie Le Chevallier died of a heart attack last night (Friday), in Vendée, at the age of 86," said Toulon city councilor and regional councilor RN Amaury Navarranne in a statement.
"It is always very sad to learn of the death of someone, regardless of the relationships that we may have had in the past", tweeted for his part Hubert Falco who had beaten Mr. Le Chevallier during the 2001 municipal election.
"Jean-Marie Le Chevallier had a vision of politics, convictions and ideas (...) diametrically opposed to mine", he added while stressing that the city "salutes the memory" of its former mayor "democratically elected".
Mr. Le Chevallier was one of the first three candidates of the far-right party to win municipal elections in France in 1995 with Daniel Simonpieri in Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône) and Jacques Bompard in Orange (Vaucluse).
"He was one of the symbols of the growth of the National Front in the 1980s," said Mr. Navarrane.
In 1999, he dissented from the far-right party then led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
During his tenure, many controversies had erupted about his management.
The cultural center of Châteauvallon had to deprogram the rap group NTM "which attacks the dignity of women and mothers" according to Mr. Le Chevallier.
Jean-Marie Le Chevallier had also taken over the Book Festival and inaugurated in 1996 a "book freedom festival" giving prominence to the authors of the National Front.
Mr. Falco, who had beaten him in 2001, then claimed to have found the city's finances in a "dire" situation.
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