France: Despite her conviction, Marine Le Pen launches her campaign

On Tuesday 7 July, the Paris Court of Appeal convicted Marine Le Pen of misappropriation of public funds in the case concerning her party’s parliamentary assistants. She will, however, be able to stand in the 2027 presidential election, as the Court of Appeal showed leniency by sentencing her to three years’ imprisonment – one year of which is to be served under house arrest – and a 45-month ban on holding public office, 30 months of which are suspended and 15 of which have already been served.

That very evening, Marine Le Pen announced that she would appeal to the Court of Cassation (which suspends her prison sentence) and that she would stand as a candidate in the presidential election, declaring: “The French people will be the judges.” This is a high-risk gamble for the leader of the French far right, whose opponents denounce her as indecent and hypocritical: one of the Front National’s long-standing slogans has been ‘clean hands and heads held high’, and Marine Le Pen has always called for politicians convicted by the courts to be barred from standing for office for life…