Marine warfare: Le Pen runs for president
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Why did Marine Le Pen decide to run for the French presidency now?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. Today on the show, the world's first sanctuary for captive whales. And our journey down Route 66 takes us into its commercial history. First up though.
Et donc vous êtes ce soir, vous dites que vous êtes candidate à l'élection présidentielle. Donc ce
soir,
je suis candidate
à l'élection présidentielle. Last night, Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist right national rally party, said she will run in France's presidential election next year. Back in 2025, it looked like Le Pen's political career might be over. She was convicted of misusing European Parliament funds for her party, and banned from running for elected office for five years. Yesterday, a court of appeal in Paris upheld Le Pen's conviction, but crucially, it lightened her sentence, freeing her to run. The vote in April 2027 may be nine months away, but the presidential campaign has now started.
Le Pen's decision to run ends fifteen months of uncertainty for her party, the National Rally.
Sophie Pedder is
our Paris bureau chief. It sets France up for a very unusual election campaign because the candidate has now been convicted twice in the first and second instances, although she's appealing. A lot of twists and turns in the day, but at least now the campaign proper can begin.
Sophie, it's been something of a saga getting to this point. Just talk me through the details of exactly what happened yesterday.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal in Paris upheld her conviction. It handed her a three year jail sentence. Two of those are suspended and one is to be served with an electronic ankle tag. But crucially for Le Pen, and this is what really made the difference, is that the court shortened her ban on running for office and ruled that she'd already served the ineligibility penalty. So that freed her to run.
Le Pen said last night that the ban had posed an enormous democratic problem. As she said it was now up to the people to decide. She continues to claim she's innocent and she has said that she will now take her appeal to the highest court, the Court de Cassation.
Okay, Sophie, so that's all very complicated, but the main thing is that she is running. Can you just remind us why she's such an important figure in French politics?
It's an extraordinary story. It's the story of a family. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founded the National Front, as it was known then in the nineteen seventies. He stood in elections from nineteen seventy-four up till two thousand and two. Only one he didn't stand in. So you've got over half a century of a member of the Le Pen family standing in French presidential elections. There's no other family that has represented anything of the sort. She inherited a party that was xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and she has really brought it closer to respectability. It's now considered by a lot of voters in France as a party like any other. She has been on a quest to sort of earn it this mainstream quality. And that is why she, I think, wants to prove that now she can do it.
And now that we know that she's running, how will that actually shape the campaign?
Well, it definitely marks the start of the presidential campaign. It is providing some clarity for her opponents as well. They know now who they'll be up against, and that matters because up till now for the last fifteen months it hasn't been clear. It also enables her to really shape the policy direction that the party's going in. She has some fairly left-leaning views, which is quite unusual for a hard right populist politician, on things like lowering the pension age or protecting people on low incomes. She has her base in the northeast of France. She's a deputy for the mining basin. And she very much bases her support on the working class electorate, and that is where she'll be concentrating most of her appeal.
And Sophie, what happens to Jordan Bardella, who was expected to run if Le Pen was barred, who has been Le Pen's protege? Will they be able to work together now?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why did Marine Le Pen decide to run for the French presidency now?
0:03–6:25
2
How did the Paris court’s ruling change Le Pen’s eligibility to stand?
6:25–11:23
3
What is the historical significance of the Le Pen family in French politics?
11:23–16:12
4
How will Le Pen’s candidacy reshape the 2027 French election campaign?
16:12–21:17
5
What are the prospects for Jordan Bardella after Le Pen re‑enters the race?
21:17–24:11