PARIS — Robert Faurisson, a former literature professor turned anti-Semitic propagandist whose denial of the Holocaust earned him multiple prosecutions, died on Sunday at his home in Vichy, France. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his publisher, Akribeia, which is known for its far-right leanings.

Mr. Faurisson was regarded as a father figure by contemporary French exponents of Holocaust denial, the extremist fringe in a country with a long tradition of anti-Semitism. Contemporary far-right figures like the propagandist Alain Soral and Dieudonné, who calls himself a humorist, have followed in his footsteps, but none have had the long-range tenacity of Mr. Faurisson.

French writers on the political margins began denying the Holocaust not long after the war ended. But Mr. Faurisson distinguished himself by making a rare breakthrough into the country’s mainstream media, publishing a notorious opinion article in France’s most respected newspaper, Le Monde, in 1978.

Titled “The Problem of the Gas Chambers, or the Rumor of Auschwitz,” the article was an immediate embarrassment for the newspaper, but it launched the public career of Mr. Faurisson, who until then was an obscure professor of French literature at the University of Lyon.