Marine Le Pen likened herself to Martin Luther King Jr on Sunday as she roused her campaign against the court judgment barring her from standing in the 2027 presidential election.

The hard-right politician, who was convicted of embezzlement, spoke as her National Rally movement held a hastily arranged protest beside the golden dome of Les Invalides in the capital after the ruling by the Paris criminal court last week.

Le Pen, whose anti-immigration party has been accused of discriminating against foreigners, said she would fight back against an establishment bent on barring her from power as the American civil rights leader battled against segregation in the 1960s.

The comparison appeared far-fetched to some observers, but illustrated how French politics has been turned on its head over the past week. The police presence was heavy, with riot officers and snipers on the roof.

As Le Pen — the runaway favourite for the 2027 presidential election, according to polls — expressed outrage at the court’s decision, to the south of the Seine the radical left France Unbowed party held a protest against her populists. In the suburbs, President Macron’s centrist camp organised a rally in support of Gabriel Attal, the former prime minister who hopes to be his party’s candidate in two years’ time.

Police said there were 7,000 people at Le Pen’s protest and 5,000 at the left-wing gathering.

Le Pen and 23 others linked to her party were found guilty of embezzling €2.9 million from the European parliament through a fake jobs scam from 2004 to 2016. The three judges sentenced Le Pen to two years under house arrest, a €100,000 fine and a five-year ban on running for office.

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Her only hope of standing in the 2027 election is to overturn the ruling on appeal next year. The protest at Les Invalides was part of a drive to exert pressure on the Paris appeal court, which will have to make what is shaping up to be a momentous ruling.

Under bright sunshine, Le Pen, 56, appeared via videolink as supporters waved tricolour flags. The rally was billed by party officials as a show of force. Jordan Bardella, her protégé and favourite to become the party’s presidential candidate if she cannot stand, said that 10,000 people were at the protest and that the court decision had galvanised Le Pen’s supporters.

The mood seemed flat, however, with only half-hearted chants of “Marine, présidente” and little of the fervour that usually accompanies her speeches.

Before the court had given judgment, Le Pen had said that a ban on running for office would signal her “political death”. Now she wants to ram home the message that, despite the decision, she is alive — at least pending an appeal.

“I will never give up,” she said She denounced the ban as a “political decision” against which she would campaign, although without violence.

“The line we follow will never be that of brutality, but the peaceful one of … Martin Luther King for the civil rights of American citizens oppressed at that time,” she said. “We intend to invite all French people enamoured of liberty to join us in a peaceful, democratic, popular and patriotic resistance.”

Before she spoke, messages of support were played to the crowd from European right-wing populists such as Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy, Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Party for Freedom and Santiago Abascal, leader of the Spanish Vox movement.

In terms reminiscent of JD Vance, the American vice-president who has argued that Europe is turning its back on democracy, Le Pen claimed that “in every European country, nationalists are prosecuted”, implying that all were facing an establishment conspiracy.

Le Pen said she was the victim of a “perverse game” and the “persecution of opponents, the criminalisation of adversaries and the will to ruin opposition parties with one aim in mind — keeping power — although they are driving the country towards its ruin”.

Attal said at his centrist rally: “The National Rally demands a firm line for everyone except itself. How can you be credible with a juvenile delinquent if politicians don’t respect the rules? If you steal, you must pay for it.”