Marine Le Pen is in a race against the clock

Marine Le Pen is fighting back, launching an all-out counterattack against a Paris court’s decision to suspend her from politics. ‘We won’t let the French people’s election be stolen,’ she declared at an RN meeting the morning after her conviction, calling the ruling a ‘nuclear bomb’ dropped because ‘we’re about to win’ the presidency. Time, though, is her real enemy. The presidential election’s first round is set for April 2027, with candidates due to declare by early January. Le Pen has just 21 months to overturn her conviction, but French criminal appeals typically take 18 to 24 months – too long unless the court fast-tracks it or it’s scheduled with political urgency. Her strategy now hinges on reversing the ruling, speeding up the process, and rewriting the narrative – or the law itself.