Several thousand protesters joined a Paris rally with France’s Marine Le Pen to protest a court ban on the far-right figurehead taking part in the next presidential election.
Le Pen, the main speaker at the rally, called the ruling an attack on the will of the people and a fight over the truth. “I will not give up,” she said, insisting her honour had been trampled on.
Le Pen’s party, the National Rally (RN), had called for the event and had expected up to 10,000 participants. The rally appeared not to completely fill a square at the Paris landmark of Hôtel des Invalides.
On Monday, a court convicted Le Pen, her party and other party officials of embezzling EU funds. She was handed a partially suspended prison sentence and banned from running in elections for five years.
Parallel to the RN rally, two counter-protests also took place several kilometres away in Paris.
According to the organizers, around 15,000 people gathered on the Place de la République after a call to action from the left-wing party La France Insoumise and the Greens, among others.
Counter-protesters demonstrated against the rise of the far right and called for the rule of law to be upheld.
Meanwhile, supporters of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party demonstrated outside a scheduled party meeting on the outskirts of the French capital. Party leader Gabriel Attal accused the RN of attacking both the judges and France’s institutions with their actions.
Le Pen appealed against the judgement, but the proceedings could drag on too long for her to be able to run in the 2027 presidential election. The court of appeal has announced that it will rule by summer 2026 at the latest.
Leader of the French National Rally Party (Rassemblement National), Marine Le Pen, speaks during a rally in her support after being convicted of a fake employment scheme. Le Pen declared that she would exhaust all legal options to run in the 2027 elections despite the ban on her candidacy. Julien De Rosa/AFP/dpa
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