Le Pen calls her conviction ‘political decision’, vows not to give up fight

President of Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen reacts as she delivers a speech during a rally in her support, after she was convicted of a fake jobs scheme at the EU parliament, in Paris on April 6, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday (April 6, 2025) vowed not to give up after she was found guilty of embezzlement and banned from taking part in elections, slamming her conviction as a “political decision”.

The bombshell judgement, which could crush Le Pen’s dream of winning the French presidency in 2027, has stunned the country’s political establishment.

“I won’t give up,” Le Pen told members of her National Rally party and supporters, who packed the Place Vauban, with the glittering golden dome of the Hotel National des Invalides, one of the French capital’s best-known landmarks, in the background.

She denounced a “witch hunt” against her party as supporters waved French flags and chanted “Marine! Marine!”

Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s top lieutenant and head of the National Rally party, told the rally that the court ruling was aimed at “eliminating her from the presidential race”.

Bardella, 29, stressed the party did not want to “discredit all judges” but Le Pen’s conviction was “a direct attack on democracy and a wound to millions of patriotic French people”.

The far right sought to mount a show of force after Le Pen, 56, was found guilty Monday of embezzling European Parliament funds and given a partly suspended jail term and an immediate ban on holding public office.

Her supporters branded the ruling politically motivated, but President Emmanuel Macron insisted the French judiciary is “independent”. The judges who convicted Le Pen have received threats.

Some leftwing forces and the centrist camp staged counter gatherings on Sunday against the far right.

At a meeting of Macron’s Renaissance party in the northern working-class Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, former prime minister Gabriel Attal accused the far right of “attacking our judges, attacking our institutions”.

“You steal, you pay,” Attal said in a speech later in the day.

Some left-wingers including members of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party staged a counter rally at the Place de la Republique. According to a police source, around 3,000 people attended.