Defiant, Le Pen Tells Supporters ‘I Won’t Give Up’ Despite 5-Year Ban

Europe|Defiant, Le Pen Tells Supporters ‘I Won’t Give Up’ Despite 5-Year Ban

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, told cheering supporters in Paris on Sunday that she would fight the five-year ban on her running for office , which resulted from an embezzlement conviction, casting herself as an underdog representing those who are “disdained” by the political elite.

Addressing a crowd of several thousand who chanted her name, Ms. Le Pen and her allies railed against what they called curtailed free speech, biased judges and a “system” built to keep their party out of power. This is happening, she said, as the country disintegrates into “ruin and chaos.”

“I won’t give up,” Ms. Le Pen said, arguing that she was the target of a politically motivated “witch hunt” to prevent her from competing in France’s 2027 presidential election, in which she has been a front-runner.

“They are doing this for a single reason,” she said. “We are winning.”

Ms. Le Pen’s conviction has been criticized by global right-wing figures, including President Trump. Her criticisms of France’s judiciary echoed his grievances against American courts.

But she was less fiery in tone than Mr. Trump often is, and the crowd did not course with the volatile anger that fueled the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol in Washington. Her party, the National Rally, has spent more than a decade working to replace its radical image with a smooth, ready-to-govern one.

Ms. Le Pen even invoked the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as she urged a “peaceful and democratic resistance” against the judicial action directed at her. She said that she was not “above the law, but not below it,” either.