Former French interior minister, Charles Pasqua has died at the age of 88.

A hardline politician, Pasqua was a close ally of former president Jacques Chirac and a veteran of the Gaullist movement.

He spent more than half a century at the heart of French politics and earned a reputation as a no-nonsense operator. However, his career was overshadowed by funding scandals.

Pasqua faced judicial investigations in France for several affairs and in 2009 a court confirmed a guilty verdict for the illegal funding of his 1999 EU parliament campaign.

At the time of his death he was also appealing a two-year suspended sentence and a 150,000 euro fine for misappropriation of public funds in connection with a project to establish an art foundation.

Born in 1927 to a Corsican family settled in southern France, Pasqua joined the French resistance in 1943. Four years later, he became a member of General Charles de Gaulle’s Rally for the French People (RPF)

He died in hospital in Paris.