By Antonio Torres del Cerro
Paris (EFE).- French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, disqualified from running in the 2027 presidential elections because of a corruption conviction, defended herself at a rally in Paris, replicated in a counter-demonstration by a divided left that failed to mobilize as expected.
“It was not a judicial decision. It was a political one (…) that disrespects the rule of law and the state of democracy,” Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate, claimed in front of thousands of sympathizers gathered on Vauban Square, a few meters from Les Invalides, a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France.
In a defiant tone, Le Pen said she would not give up and insisted that she had been the subject of “the lies, the slander, and the false trials.”
“I had to be eliminated from political life without the possibility of appeal,” Le Pen denounced, alluding to the immediate execution of the five-year ban from public office, which she hopes to have reduced in an appeal to be decided in 2026 before the 2027 elections.
After receiving video messages of support from far-right figures such as Argentinian President Javier Milei, Italian Vice President Matteo Salvini, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and Spanish Vox leader Santiago Abascal, Marine Le Pen attacked EU’s “brutality” and the bias of the French prosecutor.
Divided left and Macronism attack Le Pen
About five kilometers (three miles) from Vauban Square, thousands of demonstrators came to the Place de la République for a protest in defense of the rule of law, called by the country’s main left-wing force, La France Insoumise (LFI), and supported by the Greens.
The turnout (estimated at less than 5,000) was lower than expected, partly because neither the Socialist Party (PS) nor the French Communist Party (PCF) supported the rally, arguing that they did not want to politicize a judicial matter.
LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard and the party’s leader in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, warned that the RN was “violent and dangerous” and that Sunday’s protest would be the first of several against the far right.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, Renaissance, held another rally, planned since February before the verdict against Le Pen was announced, at the Cité du Cinéma in Saint-Denis.
Party’s leader, MP, and former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who defended Le Pen’s conviction, gave the principal speech: “If you steal, you pay. Especially if you are a politician.” EFE
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