Le Pen Vows to Appeal Conviction as Protests Fall Flat
The leader of France’s National Rally (RN) party, Marine Le Pen, told supporters she would not give up despite being found guilty of embezzling European Union (EU) funds and banned from running for office, but large-scale protests against the move did not materialize Sunday.
The RN called on its supporters to mobilize in Place Vauban in Paris, near the historic Les Invalides, to “defend freedom, save democracy, and support Marine!”
Protesters waved tricolor flags, with a CNN team on the ground seeing what appeared to be a few thousand in attendance to protest Le Pen’s barring from the 2027 election.
Speaking to the crowd on Sunday, Le Pen reiterated her stance on the ruling being politically motivated. “This is not a judicial decision, it’s a political decision,” she said.
The protests were met with rival rallies by left-wing parties and groups on the opposite side of Paris. The organizers, Les Écologistes and the France Unbowed parties, said thousands of people were in attendance at the counter-protest, where a large banner read, “Let’s not let the far right get away with it!”
Le Pen, who was the frontrunner for France’s next presidential election in two years, was convicted by a Paris court on Monday for using more than €4.5 million ($4.38 million) of EU money to pay her party’s political staff from 2004 to 2016, while falsely claiming they were working as assistants to its members of the European Parliament.