The far-right politician rallies supporters after being found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds.
France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called her conviction a “political decision” and promised to keep going after she was found guilty of embezzlement and banned from taking part in elections, including the 2027 presidential vote.
“I won’t give up,” Le Pen told flag-waving members of her National Rally party and supporters who packed the Place Vauban in Paris on Sunday with the glittering golden dome of the Hotel National des Invalides in the background.
She also denounced a “witch-hunt” – a phrase used by United States President Donald Trump – against her party.
Some leftist groups and the centrist camp staged counterdemonstrations in Paris’s Place de Republique against the far right, seeking what they said was justice and a united front against the National Rally.
The judges who convicted Le Pen have received threats.
Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s top lieutenant and head of the National Rally, told those gathered that the court ruling was aimed at “eliminating her from the presidential race”.
Bardella said the party did not want to “discredit all judges” but Le Pen’s conviction was “a direct attack on democracy and a wound to millions of patriotic French people”.
Monday’s judgement, which could crush Le Pen’s dream of winning the French presidency in two years, stunned the country’s political establishment.
Le Pen’s appeal
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said Le Pen is hoping the part of the court ruling on her ineligibility for candidacy could be lifted or made shorter so she may run in the next election.
“The appeals court in Paris said there is a chance that it would be able to examine her appeal by the middle of next year,” Butler said.
“The time would allow her to possibly run in 2027,” she added.
Before Sunday’s rally, Le Pen urged her supporters to take inspiration from one of the pre-eminent US advocates of nonviolence in the fight for equal rights for Black Americans.
“We will follow the example of Martin Luther King, who defended civil rights,” she told members of Italy’s hard-right League party via videolink as they met in Florence.
At a meeting of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party in the northern working-class Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal accused the far right of “attacking our judges, attacking our institutions”.
“We, here, will never disqualify a court decision,” Attal said, speaking in the presence of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou and Edouard Philippe, a fellow former premier who also hopes to run in the 2027 presidential election.
“You steal, you pay,” Attal said.
He also denounced “unprecedented interference” in France’s affairs, apparently pointing to support for Le Pen from the likes of Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Trump criticism
The US president called Le Pen’s ban a “witch-hunt” by “European leftists using lawfare to silence free speech and censor their political opponent”.
Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and given a partly suspended jail term and an immediate ban on holding public office.
Her supporters branded the ruling politically motivated, but Macron insisted the French judiciary is “independent”.
Le Pen has worked to turn her party into an electable force and rid it of the legacy of her father, its co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died in January and was frequently accused of racism.
The latest survey by pollster Elabe for broadcaster BFMTV, released on Saturday, suggested she could win up to 36 percent of the vote.