Paris court decision could bar Marine Le Pen from 2027 presidential race

Paris — Marine Le Pen said in Liévin at the weekend that if the Paris appeal court bars her from running for the 2027 presidency, she will instead back her protégé Jordan Bardella; the announcement underlines a possible end to her leadership of France’s nationalist right.

Le Pen, 57, spoke in her Pas-de-Calais constituency, stating the judicial outcome could prevent her candidacy and that she would transfer her energy to supporting Bardella if excluded.

Throughout her political career she has twice lost presidential contests to Emmanuel Macron, finishing runner-up in 2017 and 2022, and remains a dominant figure in anti-immigration politics for the past 15 years.

Her political trajectory began in childhood amid family upheaval: she and her sisters survived a 1976 bomb attack on their Paris apartment, an event she later described as a formative “night of horror” that affirmed her father’s political life.

Marine Le Pen trained as a lawyer in Paris, entered the National Front (FN), became party vice-president in 2003 and won a seat in the European Parliament in 2004, remaining an MEP until 2017.

She led a long process of rebranding the party, expelling her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in August 2015 and later renaming the movement Rassemblement National; she has pursued a strategy of removing overtly racist and antisemitic elements while keeping anti-immigration policies.

Legal troubles have shadowed her career: a 2024 conviction found she played a central role in a scheme that used €1.4 million of European Parliament funds to pay party assistants, and she has faced other court cases though she was acquitted in 2015 of inciting racial hatred.

Financial strains in the party’s past led it to borrow from a Russian-Czech bank linked to the Kremlin, and Le Pen has previously expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin, including a Kremlin visit before the 2017 election.

Her positions on Russia and Ukraine have drawn scrutiny; in early 2022 she questioned whether Russia intended full invasion before later affirming support for Ukraine’s sovereignty if an invasion occurred.

Observers in Liévin interpreted her recent remarks and public gestures — including singing along to Dalida’s song “Mourir sur scène” and a widely noted appearance carrying a kitten — as a possible passing of the baton to a new generation of National Rally leaders.

With Emmanuel Macron not running in 2027 and Le Pen polling strongly, a court ruling that bars her candidacy would be a decisive moment for both her personal political future and the direction of the National Rally.