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Robert Faurisson, the first Frenchman to be convicted of Holocaust denial, has died at the age of 89.

Over several decades he became his country’s most notorious revisionist, having contested Anne Frank’s Diary’s authenticity and defended French wartime leader Philippe Petain for collaborating with Nazi Germany.

His sister said he collapsed in his hometown of Vichy, the very city where Petain’s government set its headquarters during the war.

Faurisson was convicted numerous times from 1981 to 2016 repeating his revisionist comments and writings.

He was known for writing that gas chambers were “the biggest lie of the 20th century” and that there had been no systematic killing in Nazi camps, claiming the deported Jews had died of disease and malnutrition.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the far-right National Front party, said he had fought for free expression.

“Faurisson is a symbol of the way free speech has been criminalised in this county,” Mr Le Pen said in a statement after his death was announced.

“The State went through great lengths to silence Faurisson for decades.”