{"id":567090,"date":"2026-02-05T02:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/567090\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T02:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:51:20","slug":"le-pens-fighting-spirit-fades-as-presidential-dream-slips-away-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/567090\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Pen\u2019s fighting spirit fades as presidential dream slips away\u00a0 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0dour pessimism\u00a0in\u00a0those and similar comments is\u00a0striking coming from a leader who had vowed to fight what she framed as politically motivated hit job. Le Pen even held <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/marine-le-pen-political-future-france-democracy-europe-verdict-embezzling-funds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">a\u00a0Stop-the-Steal-type rally<\/a> last year after she and her codefendants were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/marine-le-pen-guilty-verdict-national-rally-viktor-orban-giorgia-meloni-kremlin-donald-trump-elon-musk-reactions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">found guilty<\/a> of misappropriating \u20ac4\u00a0million\u00a0of European Parliament funds.<\/p>\n<p>But as the months have dragged on, Le Pen has seemed increasingly resigned, recognizing that her\u00a0shot\u00a0at the French presidency\u00a0is slipping away\u00a0just as her party, the National Rally, is enjoying\u00a0an historic surge in popularity.\u00a0Nonetheless, it\u2019s possible the doom and gloom are all\u00a0part of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/marine-le-pen-law-france-presidential-election-national-rally-appeal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">her\u00a0strategy to express more contrition<\/a>\u00a0to get a more favorable\u00a0verdict.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever it is,\u00a0Le Pen has\u00a0presented this appeal as her last chance to mount a bid for the Elys\u00e9e Palace and\u00a0acknowledged publicly that she may be forced to step aside in favor of her 30-year-old prot\u00e9g\u00e9,\u00a0Jordan Bardella.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s sentencing recommendations\u00a0appeared to confirm\u00a0her suspicions\u00a0at first.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors\u00a0asked the court\u00a0to\u00a0uphold her five-year electoral ban, but\u00a0in an unexpected twist,\u00a0argued against\u00a0its\u00a0immediate implementation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Should the court agree, it offers Le Pen a small glimmer of hope.\u00a0But\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a legally complex and politically risky path back into the race, and one that Le Pen herself\u00a0appears to be\u00a0placing little hope in.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0dour pessimism\u00a0in\u00a0those and similar comments is\u00a0striking coming from a leader who had vowed to fight what she framed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":567091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[356,90,102001,8704,156,8706,103195,2851,50,103],"class_list":["post-567090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-courts","tag-elections","tag-elections-in-europe","tag-far-right","tag-france","tag-french-politics","tag-jordan-bardella","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-news","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116015758368639895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}