French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was greeted by cheers and boos on Wednesday as she launched her presidential campaign in western France, a day after an appeals court enabled her to run despite confirming her conviction for embezzling EU funds.
As she shook hands in the street market of the small town of La Fleche in the Loire Valley, some jeered "Give the money back!" and "Go to jail!" while others chanted "Marine, President!" - a sign of the tensions that may lie ahead.
The Paris appeals court on Tuesday shortened Le Pen's ban on running for office, even as it upheld her March 2025 conviction for misusing European Parliament funds to pay party staff.
ELECTRONIC ANKLE TAG AVERTED, FOR NOW
The appeals court ordered her to wear an electronic ankle tag for a year that would have required her to return home from the campaign trail every night. But Le Pen announced a final appeal to France's highest court, which had the effect of putting that order on hold.
The RN had already started to prepare for her protégé, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, to be its candidate. Le Pen now says if she makes it to the Elysee Palace, he will be her prime minister.
On Wednesday, Bardella accompanied her to La Fleche, a long-time left-wing town that elected a 25-year-old RN mayor, Romain Lemoigne, in March. Supporters clamoured for selfies, which she readily gave. "Marine, you're the best!" said one.
Le Pen appears to be betting that French voters will overlook her legal woes as U.S. voters did for Donald Trump, and instead focus on her pledge to boost France's sovereignty.
Hours earlier, her team had launched a campaign website with a picture of her on stage opening her arms out wide, with the slogan: "For France, Revival."
In La Fleche, Le Pen told reporters this meant "the revival of education, the revival of the justice system, the revival of security for our fellow citizens, the revival of control over our borders, and the revival of our sovereignty".
LE PEN LIKELY TO REACH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RUNOFF
Adélaïde Zulfikarpasic, from BVA pollsters, said she expected Le Pen to make it to the second round runoff of the presidential election on May 2 despite her guilty verdict, thanks to a loyal voter base.
"There is a degree of ambivalence among French voters: when asked which qualities they most want in a president, they point to honesty and probity. In practice, however, they tend to be less demanding."
But Zulfikapasic said the key question for Le Pen was whether she could expand her electoral base, and that the guilty verdict might make this more challenging.
Officials at France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation, have previously said that they would aim to deliver their ruling in early 2027, before the election. If they confirm Tuesday's judgment, Le Pen may have to wear an electronic tag for the last weeks or months of her campaign.
(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in paragraph 13)
