Supporters of far-right French politician Marine Le Pen gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest against her embezzlement conviction and five-year ban from running in elections.
Le Pen stood unshaken before a sea of French flags in Paris on Sunday. “For 30 years I have fought against injustice,” she told the crowd. “And I will continue to fight.”
Le Pen pledged to not allow herself to be “robbed of the presidency”. “It is impossible for me to hide my emotion at seeing you here and at our side in all our departments. Thank you for being here to defend what this decision has trampled on and what I hold dear above all else: my people, my country and my honour.”
“Let me reassure everyone: I won’t give up,” she added at the meeting, held not far from the National Assembly and at the foot of the Hôtel des Invalides in the French capital.
The National Rally (RN), Le Pen’s party, organised the event in response to what it calls a politically motivated verdict. But with chants of “Marine Présidente!” and “They won’t steal 2027 from us,” the message was clear: this was more than a protest. It was a show of populist defiance aimed squarely at France’s institutions.
“So now I’m to be eliminated from democratic life, in the name of a so-called disturbance of democratic public order, a concept purely and simply invented for the occasion”, Marine Le Pen castigated her supporters, claiming that this “political decision” had “flouted the rule of law but also the rule of democracy”.
A rival left-wing demonstration gathered in Place de la République, denouncing what organisers described as a “Trumpist turn” by the National Rally.
Gabriel Attal’s – who served as prime minister – centrist Renaissance party organised its own demonstration in Saint-Denis, warning of an “existential threat to the rule of law”.
The legal ruling has had repercussions beyond France, sending shockwaves through far-right circles in Europe and beyond, after some parties, including Le Pen’s, have gained ground in recent years.
Despite Monday’s court ruling, polls show that the RN remains strong, even if Le Pen protégé Jordan Bardella were to become the 2027 presidential candidate in her place.
Recent French polls conducted between 2 and 4 April, a few days after Le Pen’s conviction, showed both Bardella and Le Pen well ahead in terms of voting intentions for the 2027 presidential election.
Le Pen polled somewhere between 32% and 36% of voting intentions, while Bardella was projected somewhere between 31% and 35.5%.
Bardella: “A direct attack on democracy”
The young president of RN, who preceded the far-right leader on the podium, denounced the “scandalous” judicial decision to “eliminate” Le Pen from the presidential race, slamming it as a “direct attack on democracy” and “an injury to millions of patriots”.
“They wanted to extinguish one voice, but they woke up the people of France”, said Bardella at the podium.
“History has given us a date here”, he added, before booing the counter-demonstration organised at the same time by a section of the left.
Most of the demonstrators interviewed came from the Paris region and the inner suburbs, with the exception of a bus from Hénin-Beaumont, the National Rally’s stronghold in northern France.
Before the actual start of the ‘meeting’, those gathered at Place Vauban were disrupted by a protest by Femen – a feminist activist group – who called for Marine Le Pen to be banned for life, before being unceremoniously removed by RN security.
Additional sources • Le Figaro
