A combative Le Pen looks to move past France's election ban

France’s far-right National Rally conceded the extent of the damage caused by a court ruling barring its leader, Marine Le Pen, from running for election. But the party insists that the fight isn’t over and that it will try to use the controversy to its advantage.

“This indignation, this wound, must be used as an engine of indignation and perseverance,” Le Pen told lawmakers in Paris Tuesday. “The system has pulled out the nuclear bomb because we’re about to win the election.”

On Monday, Le Pen, 56, was sentenced to two years in prison and given an immediate five-year election ban. Along with her party, she was found guilty of diverting €4.4 million ($4.8 million) in European Union funds to finance activities related to the National Rally’s domestic agenda.

Le Pen’s lawyer said an appeal had already been filed on Monday. And while a court decision on that request before the presidential election in 2027 isn’t out of the question, it would be difficult given the complexity of the case and number of defendants.

French government bonds — known as OATs — have barely reacted to the news, a sign it’s too early to price in the impact. Markets have been wary of Le Pen’s party given costly spending plans that could exacerbate the country’s stretched public finances.

“We’re down on one knee today,” Jordan Bardella, 29, the National Rally’s president and Le Pen’s protege, said on Europe 1 radio Tuesday. “But we’re far from dead.”

As a first step, the National Rally will hold protests this weekend in an effort to tap into ingrained discontent in the government, particularly with those who are fed up with what Bardella calls “outrageous maneuvers” to keep the far right out of power. Mainstream parties in France typically coordinate strategies in the second round of France’s two-step election to keep nationalist lawmakers out of office.

The National Rally will exhaust all legal means to allow Le Pen to run in two years, hoping an appeal will run its course before the election. Even if the process does happen in time, however, it’s far from certain that the decision would be in the party’s favor.

Bardella acknowledged on Tuesday that overturning the ruling was unlikely, and he said he would step in for Le Pen and run as the far-right candidate for president if she asked him to.

For now, Bardella is effectively sticking to Le Pen’s strategy to pull the party out of the fringes and try to make it more palatable to mainstream voters. Le Pen has sought to renounce the overt racism and divisive rhetoric of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party.

Bardella on Tuesday condemned violence and threats against judges, and called for peaceful protests this weekend. He also suggested the National Rally wouldn’t immediately seek to topple the government, saying a no-confidence vote wouldn’t change the court’s decision anyways.

Mainstream parties meanwhile are trying to game out what the turmoil in the National Rally portends for French politics.

A lawmaker from French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it isn’t clear that far-right voters want to see more chaos, which may temper any efforts by Le Pen to dissolve the National Assembly.

A senior official in the Socialist party warned that Le Pen’s election ban probably doesn’t change much in the overall balance of power in French politics since the party itself is still just as strong. The National Rally is the largest single group in the lower house.

“The National Rally will play the victim by saying they are being handcuffed at the gates of power,” Valerie Igounet, a French historian who specializes in the far right and tracks online racism and antisemitism via Conspiracy Watch, said in an interview.

Another official close to Macron expressed concern that the court decision would embolden Le Pen and her party, allowing her to play the role of victim and claim unfair treatment. This would align with Le Pen’s statements, as well as those of other far-right leaders with similar nationalist and anti-migration views.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla founder Elon Musk, as well as former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, all criticized the court decision as encroaching on democracy. But it remains to be seen if this tack will resonate with voters.

A survey showed that 42% of respondents were satisfied with the court’s decision and 29% were indifferent, according to an Elabe poll of 1,008 adults carried out for BFM TV online after Le Pen’s conviction on Monday. About 68% of those surveyed said the immediate application of the decision to bar her from office was fair while 31% said it’s unjust.

But unease over the verdict wasn’t reserved for the far right. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party criticized the ruling. And Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said ahead of the sentencing that it would be “deeply shocking” if Le Pen couldn’t run.

“I find it quite distressing to see part of the right and part of the left coming to the rescue of Marine Le Pen,” the head of the Socialist party, Olivier Faure, told French radio RTL. “The National Rally is not barred from running, it’s not forbidden, we have not become a dictatorship — there will indeed be a candidate in 2027 for the National Rally, and it’s likely to achieve the same score” as Le Pen.

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With assistance from James Regan and Gaspard Sebag.