Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, told cheering supporters in Paris on Sunday that she would fight the five-year ban on her running for office, which resulted from an embezzlement conviction, casting herself as an underdog representing those who are “disdained” by the political elite.
Addressing a crowd of several thousand who chanted her name, Ms. Le Pen and her allies railed against what they called curtailed free speech, biased judges and a “system” built to keep their party out of power. This is happening, she said, as the country disintegrates into “ruin and chaos.”
“I won’t give up,” Ms. Le Pen said, arguing that she was the target of a politically motivated “witch hunt” to prevent her from competing in France’s 2027 presidential election, in which she has been a front-runner.
“They are doing this for a single reason,” she said. “We are winning.”
Ms. Le Pen’s conviction has been criticized by global right-wing figures, including President Trump. Her criticisms of France’s judiciary echoed his grievances against American courts.
But she was less fiery in tone than Mr. Trump often is, and the crowd did not course with the volatile anger that fueled the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol in Washington. Her party, the National Rally, has spent more than a decade working to replace its radical image with a smooth, ready-to-govern one.
Ms. Le Pen even invoked the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as she urged a “peaceful and democratic resistance” against the judicial action directed at her. She said that she was not “above the law, but not below it,” either.
“Despite our opponents’ delusions, there is no spirit of sedition among us,” she insisted, speaking from a podium emblazoned with the words “Let’s save democracy.”
Gathered before the gleaming golden dome of the Invalides, under which Napoleon’s remains are entombed, many older supporters waving French flags said they believed the sentence was heavy-handed and unfair. But few seethed with fury, and the demonstration felt more like an early campaign rally than a heated protest.
“I support Marine, even though she did something foolish,” said Jean-Louis Viardot, 74, a retired auto worker. “She should be punished, but the sentencing was too harsh.”
Ms. Le Pen, and 23 other people affiliated with the National Rally party, were convicted on embezzlement charges last week.
The case involved her party’s misuse of over 4.4 million euros, or about $4.8 million, in European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016. She was sentenced to four years in prison — two of those were suspended, two are to be served under a form of house arrest — and fined €100,000.
She was also barred from competing for public office for five years. Ms. Le Pen has run for president in each of the last three races, making it to the second round against President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022. Her party is the single largest in the lower and more powerful house of Parliament.
Ms. Le Pen appealed the verdict, and the Paris Court of Appeal said it expected to reach a decision by summer 2026. Should the ban be lifted, that would give her enough time to prepare for the presidential campaign.
It is not unheard-of for French politicians convicted of corruption to be ruled ineligible, but barring a presidential front-runner is unprecedented. Some of Ms. Le Pen’s supporters suggested she was being unfairly singled out.
“Everyone else did the same thing,” said Antoine Issa, 74, a retired public works employee from Ms. Le Pen’s constituency in northern France. Buses were chartered for supporters to travel to the protest.
Ms. Issa pointed out that members of the centrist party of France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, had been found guilty on similar charges, although it stood accused of embezzling far less. Mr. Bayrou, who unlike Ms. Le Pen was not found to have played a key role in the embezzlement, was acquitted.
“Why didn’t they do the same thing against Bayrou?” Mr. Issa said. “Look where he is. He’s the prime minister. It’s painful to see that.”
Jordan Bardella, 29, Ms. Le Pen’s protégé and the current party president, has been groomed for years to be prime minister if she wins France’s presidency. But the party has appeared reluctant to present him as a replacement for Ms. Le Pen in the 2027 race. On Sunday, he publicly reiterated his loyalty to her as leader.
“We have a sacred duty to be there, to stand united behind Marine, to hold firm in the face of storms,” he told the crowd. “She can count on me.”
Two additional competing political rallies were held on Sunday, after the verdict against Ms. Le Pen suddenly scrambled the 2027 presidential race.
The first, by Mr. Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, had been scheduled before her conviction but was recast by party officials as a way to counter far-right attacks on the judiciary with a full-throated defense of the rule of law. The second was organized around a similar goal by the hard-left France Unbowed party and the country’s Green party.
