Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), on 7 July declared her entry into the 2027 French presidential race, hours after the Paris Court of Appeal upheld her conviction for misappropriating European Parliament funds but reduced the accompanying ineligibility penalty from the initial trial to 15 months, thereby allowing her to stand. Le Pen, who received a three-year prison sentence, including two suspended and one to be served under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, announced she would appeal to the Cour de Cassation. The judicial calendar places the final verdict before the April 2027 election, leaving the possibility that she campaigns while still contesting the conviction.

According to French pollsters Ifop, Elabe, and Harris Interactive, Le Pen currently commands 34–36% of first-round voting intentions, a margin that has widened since the court ruling. In run-off projections, she defeats all tested opponents, though the margin narrows to 52–48% against centre-right former prime minister Édouard Philippe. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the radical-left La France Insoumise now polls between 14.5% and 16%, displacing Philippe as her strongest first-round rival in some configurations, though he loses decisively to Le Pen in a head-to-head. Analysts in Paris note that Le Pen and Mélenchon both mobilise loyal, polarised bases, while the fragmented centre struggles to consolidate behind one candidate: Philippe and Gabriel Attal, a former prime minister from President Macron’s Renaissance party, are competing for the same moderate electorate, with surveys showing Philippe still ahead but Attal narrowing the gap.

Viewed from Algiers, Le Pen’s candidacy is seen as a threat to bilateral relations already strained by recent crises over visas and colonial memory; Algerian commentators point to her father’s legacy and her party’s anti-immigration platform as prefiguring renewed tensions. French corporate leaders, meanwhile, express alarm. According to business sources cited in Paris, many chief executives had anticipated a run by RN party president Jordan Bardella, whom they considered more market-friendly, and view Le Pen’s economic programme—with its statist and protectionist elements—as a hostile departure. Bardella, designated as Le Pen’s future prime minister, has told Le Figaro he will lead policy-building and aims to form a government of national union, signalling an effort to reassure centrist and business concerns.

Within the RN, the leadership transition remains ambiguous: while Le Pen is the candidate, Bardella’s role as prime-minister-in-waiting grants him co-ownership of the campaign. Both figures face internal scepticism; an Elabe poll found that 70% of voters reject Le Pen’s claim of innocence, and a third of RN supporters disapprove of her decision to run. Opposition figures on the left denounce the disparity between sentences for petty theft and for public-fund embezzlement, while the centre warns of a Le Pen–Mélenchon run-off should their own camp remain divided. The first round is scheduled for 18 April 2027, with a likely second round on 2 May.