PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen insisted Tuesday that her movement could still win 2027 presidential elections after she was banned from standing for office as part of an embezzlement conviction.
She was given a prison term and fine on Monday after being convicted of a fake jobs scheme at the EU parliament, a verdict that sparked an international echo including from US President Donald Trump.
But the most serious part of the conviction was a five-year ban — effective immediately — on standing for office, which eliminates her from the race.
Addressing her lawmakers on Tuesday, Le Pen, who considered herself the favorite in the 2027 election where President Emmanuel Macron cannot stand again, accused “the system” of rolling out “the nuclear bomb” in a bid to end her presidential hopes.
“If they use such a powerful weapon against us, it’s obviously because we’re about to win an election,” said Le Pen, 56. “We won’t let this happen.”
Le Pen has said she will appeal the “political decision,” though a new trial is not expected to take place for at least a year.
Should that fail, there is also a “plan B,” a candidacy by her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, a 29-year-old with a slick television and social media presence.
Le Pen’s conviction sparked angry reactions from far-right figures across Europe but also from the Kremlin, X owner Elon Musk and Trump, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed concern.
“She was banned from running for five years and she is the leading candidate. That sounds like this country,” said Trump, comparing her conviction to the “lawfare” he says was waged against him before becoming president.
But the French government and prosecutors hit out against attacks on the judiciary and in particular against Benedicte de Perthuis, 63, the judge specialized in financial crimes who issued the verdict.
Analysts said the court decision could deepen France’s political crisis. Her National Rally (RN), which is the largest single party in parliament, can complicate life for Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, who does not have a majority in the lower-house National Assembly.
“Guilty,” French daily Liberation said on its front page, calling the ruling a “political earthquake.”
“No one is untouchable: she made a mistake, she must pay for it,” Nathanael Fichou, a waiter, said in the southern port of Marseille.
Nicole Prolhac, 78, said she was “annoyed” because Le Pen represented millions of French voters.
“But can we let someone who has committed embezzlement lead the country?“
Bardella said the party would seek to organize “peaceful” rallies this weekend.
Speaking to Europe 1 radio, Bardella said that Le Pen had been judged with “brutality and violence” and that her only mistake was to “have the capacity to take the national camp to victory.”
“Everything will be done to prevent us from coming to power,” he said.
He added that the situation could boost the fortunes of the RN.
“I tell the French do not lose hope. I think that what is happening will make millions of people who do not vote for the RN, vote for the RN,” he said.
“We are wounded. But we are far from being dead.”
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin denounced “unacceptable” threats made against the judges while France’s prosecutor general Remy Heitz said the verdict was “not a political decision but a legal one.”
Le Pen took over the former National Front (FN) from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011 and has since sought to clean up its image. Her father, who died in January, was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.
After three unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 2012, 2017 and 2022, polls had shown Le Pen to be on course to easily top the first round with a chance of winning the presidency in the second round run-off.
She was given a four-year prison term by the Paris court. Two years were suspended and the other two would be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet.
Le Pen was convicted for a scheme where the party was found to have eased the pressure on its own finances by using European Parliament monthly allowances to pay “fictitious” parliamentary assistants, who actually worked for the party.
Twenty-four people — including Le Pen — were convicted, all of them RN party officials or assistants.

BERLIN: Germany’s interior minister claimed victory for her outgoing government in its battle against irregular immigration, saying deportations were up and asylum claims down in an apparent center-left pitch to be part of the next ruling coalition.
Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat, remains as acting minister until her party and the election-winning conservatives agree on a new coalition deal, with how to handle immigration the sharpest dividing line between the would-be partners.
Conservative leader Friedrich Merz, seeking to win back voters his Christian Democrats (CDU) lost to the far right, pledged during the campaign to turn away at the borders people with the wrong documents. The SPD opposes this hard-line approach, saying it violates European Union law.
“Migration policy isn’t something for jokers, but a management assignment you have to work on seriously,” Faeser said in a statement asserting that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had run a successful migration policy.
While the number of asylum claims halved over the past two years, she said, the number of people illegally present in Germany who were then repatriated had risen 55 percent and the number of skilled workers who had immigrated legally had risen by 77 percent.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” she said. “Today we are a country that invests more in integration and is more attractive to talented and qualified workers from the world over.”
Talks between the two parties last week went into a second round after leaders acknowledged the drafts prepared so far fell far short of what was needed for a government program. Merz has said he wants to form a government by Easter.

FAR RIGHT RISES IN POLLS
Merz, the likely next chancellor, won the February 23 election but with a poorer-than-expected 28.5 percent of the vote. That left the SPD as Merz’s only possible partner if he sticks to his pledge not to cooperate with the runner-up far-right AfD party, or form an unstable three-way coalition as Scholz did.
Leaked drafts of coalition negotiating positions show the parties far apart on immigration policy. The conservatives demand more powers to expel and turn away migrants, while the SPD is focusing on integration of migrants and steps to recruit foreign skilled workers for labor-short German industries.
Concerns that commitments on migration and fiscal rigour could be watered down under the next government have preoccupied right-wing voters in particular — the AfD has gained three points in the polls since the election while the conservatives have lost three.
A series of deadly street attacks during the election campaign, blamed in some cases on foreigners illegally present in Germany, ensured the contest was dominated by a raw and angry debate over migration.
“We must carry out the migration debate without rancour, always in the awareness that we’re talking about people here,” said Faeser, who could stay on as interior minister or in another senior cabinet role if a conservative-SPD “grand coalition” comes to fruition.