Le Pen election ban risks fragile calm in French politics

Marine Le Pen’s election ban risks a surge in anti-establishment sentiment in France that could undermine efforts to stabilize the nation’s creaky public finances.

The court decision to bar the far-right leader from the 2027 presidential race jeopardizes the delicate peace that has allowed President Emmanuel Macron’s government to pass a budget for 2025. It makes a no-confidence motion in parliament more likely and potentially hands control of Le Pen’s National Rally to a largely untested 29-year-old.

Already, Le Pen and her allies are claiming the ruling is an establishment plot.

“This affair is being used to put Marine Le Pen out of action for the next presidential election,” Jordan Bardella, the National Rally’s president and Le Pen’s protege, said on Europe 1 radio Tuesday. “We won’t give up the fight and in the end we’ll win.”

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

Le Pen’s lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, said he filed an appeal on Monday and that he plans to make sure things “go quickly.” While an appeals court decision before the next election isn’t out of the question, it would be difficult given the complexity of the case and number of defendants.

Le Pen took a defiant tone in an interview Monday evening with French broadcaster TF1 and criticized the electoral ban as a “political” ruling.

“The rule of law has been totally violated by this decision,” Le Pen said in an interview Monday on TF1. “I didn’t expect the judges would go that far against the democratic process.”

Carsten Nickel, a London-based analyst for the consulting firm Teneo warned that if the National Rally frames the events as a liberal conspiracy, then they could “double down in parliament” and file a motion of no-confidence that would dissolve the government.

France’s politics have been in a state of upheaval for most of last year after Macron lost his parliamentary majority in a snap election.

Le Pen’s party scored a historic result in the first round of that vote but was kept out of power after establishment parties joined forces to block her candidates. That move had already stoked distrust among her backers.

The court decision also comes at a time of heightened tensions across the Atlantic over claims of judicial overreach, as multiple court rulings have either delayed or scuttled a slew of U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

Recent polls have made the 56-year-old nationalist a front-runner for the 2027 presidential election when term limits mean Macron cannot stand for office again.

In a poll published by Odoxa on Monday, Le Pen also topped the list of favorite politicians in France, with 37% supporting or liking her. Bardella came in a close third at 35%.

National Rally officials decried Monday’s ruling as yet another maneuver aimed at denying the party’s leader a chance at governing France.

“The System censors the people’s favorite candidate and main opponent,” Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a key Le Pen lieutenant, said on social media.

The hard-earned calm in France once again appears shaky at a time when Europe is hastening to rally support for Ukraine. More turmoil in one of Europe’s biggest economies could also jeopardize those efforts when Trump is pushing for a ceasefire in Ukraine, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin is trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the Europeans.

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.

Bardella, Plan B

Shortly after the verdict was rendered, Bardella signaled his outrage in a social media post. “Today, it’s not just Marine Le Pen who is unjustly condemned,” he wrote. “It’s French democracy that is being executed.”

Bardella, the selfie-loving president of the National Rally, was instrumental in helping the party reach a record score in the first round of the European elections last summer, lending his youthful appeal to making the party appear more mainstream.

But while his popularity among the young has been bolstered by a strong social media presence including on the video app TikTok, he is seen as inexperienced and can appear out-of-his-depth in political debates.

Bardella took the blame when his party failed to reach a majority in the second round of the legislative elections in the summer of 2024 — although it became the No. 1 party in the National Assembly in terms of seats.

“Mistakes are always made, and I’ve made them. I accept my share of responsibility both for the victory in the European elections and for yesterday’s defeat,” he said following the electoral loss.

Initial results of an internal audit found the party didn’t sufficiently assess its parliamentary candidates and that those who ran weren’t properly trained. But the findings were never made public.

Bardella could also face opposition from within the party. While he likes to burnish his credentials by pointing to his upbringing in the poor, rough and ethnically diverse Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, party officials sometimes deride what they describe as his shallowness and say he exaggerates his modest roots.

“It is going to be a challenge for Bardella. He is still new and fresh to an extent but he is no Macron coming on the scene, which was not only new and fresh, but also somewhat seasoned,” said Marta Lorimer, a lecturer in politics at Cardiff university and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.

Doubts also linger over Bardella’s ability to fire up the party’s base over Monday’s ruling in a way that finally brings the far right to a win at the ballot box in the 2027 presidential election.

“Whether Bardella can channel the outrage remains to be seen,” Nickel said. “Two years is a long time.”

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With assistance from James Regan.