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French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has told supporters in Paris she would fight “a political, not a judicial ruling” that could bar her from the next presidential election, as a rival rally denounced an “existential threat” to the rule of law after her conviction for embezzling public funds.
“This decision has trampled on everything I hold most dear: my people, my country and my honour,” the figurehead of the far-right National Rally (RN) told a crowd of flag-waving supporters as the country’s three main political movements staged events in the Paris.
Speaking from a temporary stage in front of the Hôtel des Invalides with the party’s 120 members of parliament behind her, Le Pen said she would “not give up” and was the victim of a “witch hunt”, adding: “It is we who are the most ardent defenders of the rule of law.”
But speaking at a left-wing rally a few kilometres away on the Place de la République, Green party leader Marine Tondelier said Le Pen’s defence amounted to “a total conspiracy theory” and a full-blown attack on judicial independence.
“This is about more than Marine Le Pen,” Tondelier said. “It’s about defending the rule of law from people who think justice is optional. For everyone else, she wants tough justice, tolerance zero, jail for the first offence. For her, it’s too tough.”
Manuel Bompard of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) told the rally the RN’s mask had slipped after years of trying to clean up its image and pose as a future party of government. “It’s dangerous for democracy, dangerous for the rule of law,” he said.
Police said 7,000 people were at the RN rally and 5,000 at the left-wing rival.
The three-time presidential candidate and frontrunner to succeed Emmanuel Macron was found guilty on Monday of embezzling more than €4m of European parliament funds to pay RN party workers in France through a vast fake jobs scam.
Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison, of which two were suspended and two may be served with an electronic bracelet, fined €100,000 and – under a law she had backed – barred from running for public office for five years with immediate effect.
The Paris appeals court has said it will deliver a verdict on her case by next summer, potentially allowing her to contest the 2027 presidential race if her conviction is overturned, which is seen as unlikely, or the ban on running for public office lifted.
The ruling, which followed a 10-year investigation and a nine-week trial, has dramatically shaken up the political landscape and been fiercely attacked by far-right politicians in France and beyond as politically motivated and anti-democratic.
Jordan Bardella, the RN’s 29-year-old president and Le Pen’s likely replacement if she remains ineligible, told cheering RN voters that it was “not just Marine Le Pen who has been unjustly condemned, but French democracy that has been put to death”.
The court decision would go down as “a dark day in our nation’s history”, he said, a “direct attack on our democracy, a wound for millions of patriots” and an attempt to “deprive us of free choice, to wipe from the scene an entire part of France”.
Speaking before her rally, Le Pen – whose vote share in the presidential first round was put at 36% by one poll on Sunday, far ahead of all rivals – said the RN would “follow the example of Martin Luther King’s struggle, who defended civil rights”.
Wearing a “Marine présidente” T-shirt and a “Save democracy” sticker, Patrick, 57, who had come from Normandy, said the sentence was “an outrage. Do they really think they can just get rid of an election favourite like that? It’s a banana republic.”
Valérie, 36, a legal assistant, said the court’s decision was flawed because “the texts it was based on, defining how European parliament money should be used, are unclear and imprecise. No one’s been defrauded. It’s all a complete fiction to stop Marine.”
On the Place de la République, several thousand protesters waved placards reading “No Trumpism in France” and “Nobody is above the law”. Vincent Lemaitre, 44, a primary school teacher, said the court’s ruling “shows our democracy works”.
The judges, he said, “simply applied the law, which was passed by parliament, including many deputies who represent the RN. Le Pen and her colleagues broke that law. Popularity should not give politicians immunity. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Anaïs Desmets, 31, said the argument that politicians should only be judged at the ballot box was “absurd. If someone harms children, they are kept away from kids. If someone steals public money, they shouldn’t be allowed to manage it.”
In the working-class northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, Macron’s Renaissance party and its allies warned of “an existential threat” to the rule of law. “If you steal, you pay,” former prime minister Gabriel Attal said. “Especially if you are a politician.”
Attal, addressing an audience that included the present prime minister, François Bayrou, also denounced “unprecedented interference” in France’s affairs including from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Hungary’s Viktor Orbàn and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
He said every effort should be made not to politicise the court’s decision. “It’s not up to us, or to anyone else, to say whether the court’s judgement was good or bad,” he said. “It is our responsibility to always stick to the facts.”
