How Marine Le Pen got another chance to become France's president and what it changes

On 7 July, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, announced that she will run in the presidential election.

This will set a precedent in France.

According to the latest IFOP-Fiducial poll, any candidate from the National Rally would be capable of winning around 40% of the vote in the first round, putting them well ahead of all rivals. As a result, the frontrunner in the race would be a politician with a criminal conviction who would have to conduct her election campaign while wearing an electronic ankle monitor.

Read more about Le Pen’s legal case, her chances of becoming president and the risks this poses for Ukraine, in the article by Yurii Panchenko, co-founder of European Pravda: Le Pen is back in the game: How 'Putin's friend' regained the right to become France's president.

In March last year, the Paris Criminal Court found far-right politician Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzling public funds (specifically, European Union funds). She was sentenced to four years in prison, including two years to be served under house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor. Most importantly, she was barred from running for public office for five years.

That ruling appeared to end her political ambitions.

Although she retained her seat in the National Assembly (the lower house of the French parliament), Le Pen was no longer eligible to run in the next presidential or parliamentary elections.

However, the Paris Court of Appeal later reduced the ban on holding public office to 15 months.

Moreover, the court explicitly stated that it was necessary to take into account "the voter's freedom of choice" in order to safeguard "the democratic expression of the citizens' will".

Even so, Le Pen still faces at least two major problems.

The first is that she will have to break a promise. Before the appeal ruling, Le Pen said she did not see herself as "a candidate wearing an electronic ankle monitor". She still hopes to have the monitoring requirement lifted through an appeal to France's highest court.

The second, and much larger, is an image problem, because the appeals court upheld the finding that she had committed a criminal offense.

France has never before elected a president with a criminal conviction.

Her opponents have already begun making this a central campaign issue. Le Pen's first campaign rally, held on July 8, was effectively disrupted as opponents of the far right repeatedly chanted, "No criminals in power".

Most likely, this slogan will become one of the defining themes of the presidential campaign.

However, these problems do not necessarily mean that Le Pen's chances of winning the presidency on her fourth attempt have significantly diminished.

In fact, it appears that the judicial proceedings against Le Pen have become one of the far-right's strongest political assets. The uncertainty surrounding the final appeal gives them additional opportunities to argue that she is the victim of a "witch hunt" and that the political establishment cannot defeat her in a fair election.

This time, the chances of a National Rally candidate winning the French presidency appear higher than ever. Emmanuel Macron, who defeated Le Pen twice, is constitutionally barred from seeking another term, while the presidential camp has been mired in a deep political crisis for some time.

Both the left and the traditional right of French politics also find themselves in a difficult position.

The French presidential election is therefore one of the greatest risks to maintaining international support for Ukraine.

A victory by the National Rally's candidate would likely lead not only to reduced military aid to Kyiv, but quite possibly also to blocking European financial assistance for Ukraine.