France awaits decision on whether Marine Le Pen can run for president

Photograph by Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images 

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A Paris appeal court will decide on Tuesday whether French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is allowed to stand in the country’s 2027 presidential election.

So what? The judgement could shape France’s political future. If a current ban stands, Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party will invoke a ‘plan B’ and name party president Jordan Bardella as its candidate. This would

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  end 50 years of Le Pen family control of the French far right;

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  be a leap into the unknown for the party; and

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  potentially make a martyr of Le Pen and boost RN’s support.

How we got here. In March, Le Pen was convicted of embezzling EU funds and in a fake jobs scam as a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2016. She was handed a four-year prison sentence – with two years suspended and two to be served with an electronic tag – and banned from running for public office for five years.

Moment of truth. The Paris appeal court will decide tomorrow whether to uphold the conviction.

Matriarchal martyr. Le Pen has described the ban as a “political witch hunt” and launched a campaign against the “tyranny of judges”, casting the verdict as a denial of democracy. Her opponents insist that she is not above the law.

Ironically, Le Pen set aside her Euroscepticism to ask the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the ban.

Family affair. The Le Pens have been a political force for more than 50 years, first in the 1970s with National Front-founder and Holocaust-denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, then with Marine, the youngest of his three daughters. She took over the party in 2011, changed its name to RN and kicked out much of the old guard, including her father, but retained its anti-immigration focus.

Enter stage far right. Bardella joined in 2012 aged 16, the year Le Pen made her first bid to become president. He replaced her as party president in 2022.

What is plan B? The pair have a deal under which Le Pen would appoint Bardella as prime minister if she becomes president and vice versa. Bardella owes his political career to Le Pen and has said they are each other’s “number one supporter.”

And yet, nine months from the election, cracks are showing on key issues. Le Pen wants to lower the retirement age; Bardella has suggested he might raise it.

TikTok populist. Bardella, who is only 30, was largely unknown to the wider public until recently. Today he is a national celebrity with a knack for social media. Although he has helped RN reach younger audiences, nobody can say for sure what he represents.

Part of his appeal lies in his humble origins as someone who grew up in Paris’s biggest banlieue (suburb). But his image as the self-appointed champion of the “quiet working class” is undercut by his relationship with an Italian princess, Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

The OG. Le Pen, meanwhile, commands more support among older voters.

What do the polls say? Regardless of who is on the ballot, RN will win the first round of the election over the nearest predicted rival, conservative former prime minister Édouard Philippe. The party benefits from the fact that the French left and centre are divided.

The second round is impossible to call, since tactical voting will come into play.

What’s more… If opinion polls are to be believed, Bardella is slightly more popular with voters than Le Pen, who has already run for president three times.