Jean-Marie Le Pen, 78, leader of the far-right National Front, first ran for president in 1974, when he scored 0.74 percent of the vote. The sharp-tongued rabble-rouser, often accused of racism, has weathered ferocious verbal attacks and worse, including assassination attempts and a bombing that destroyed his Paris home in the 1970s. But in 2002, when security and immigration had become hot-button issues and support for protest parties was high, Le Pen scored 16.86 percent in a crowded field, putting him in the second-round race against incumbent Jacques Chirac. A shocked nation rejected Le Pen with 82 percent of the vote and returned Chirac to power. But the results established the right-wing outsider as a legitimate electoral threat, and he'll hope to improve on his score this time around. Le Pen has three daughters. His youngest, 38-year-old Marine, is a National Front vice president and her father's campaign-strategy director.