France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen has formally launched her presidential campaign, promising to restore order and national confidence amid what she called mounting economic, social and security crises.
The timing of the announcement coincides with growing pressure on President Emmanuel Macron's administration that has led to two consecutive weekends of mass protests against a rising cost of living and worsening public services. The demonstrations led to looting and vandalism with more than 1,000 arrests made.
Speaking in the north-central French city of Orléans, home to Joan of Arc, a heroine revered by nationalists as a symbol of patriotism, she told cheering supporters, “We are not living through the end of the world but the end of a world, their world.”
She promised “zero tolerance” policing, calling security the state’s first duty, with a promise to restore order and national confidence.
The turmoil appears to have helped her. A poll published on Sunday, 25 October, put her on 32 per cent to 33.5 per cent, well ahead of hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 17 per cent. Surveys suggest she would easily beat him in a runoff.
Le Pen pledged to restore border controls and automatically expel foreign criminals. On the economy, she promised spending restraint, lower business taxes and no further rise in the retirement age. She stopped short of advocating a French exit from the European Union but said she would roll back Brussels’s influence.
Her bid remains clouded by legal questions. An appeals court ruled in July that she could run despite confirming her conviction for embezzling EU funds. She then lodged a final appeal with France’s highest court, which put an ankle-tag order on hold. That court has said it could rule by early April 2027, before the two rounds of voting on 18 April and 2 May.
Jordan Bardella was re-elected National Rally president and presented as her choice for Prime Minister. His speech was interrupted by Jewish student union activists over accusations that he made antisemitic comments in his youth, which he denies.
Le Pen has spent more than a decade softening the image of the party she inherited from her father, Jean-Marie, in 2011.
She ended by declaring, “The future belongs to us” and leading the crowd in the French national anthem.
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Around 11,000 people joined a demonstration in Orléans on Saturday against the National Rally congress, according to the local prefecture.
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