To drive a split: what will the mitigation of Marine Le Pen's sentence mean?

The Paris Court of Appeal has allowed Marine Le Pen to participate in the 2027 presidential elections, commuting the earlier verdict in the case of party financing at the expense of the European Parliament. In the spring of 2025, the politician was deprived of the right to be elected for a period of five years. Experts interviewed by Izvestia believe that the court's decision may be aimed at splitting the National Association and weakening the position of its head, Jordan Bardell. Earlier, the politician stated that he was ready to run for president next year if Marine Le Pen was banned from participating in the elections.

Alexey Chikhachev, Associate Professor of the Department of European Studies at St. Petersburg State University, a leading expert at the Higher School of Economics:

— Theoretically, she now has the opportunity to run for the presidential election next year, but a lot depends on the legal nuance. In particular, the court ordered Ms. Le Pen to wear an electronic bracelet, and just the day before she stated that it was physically impossible to conduct a campaign while wearing an electronic bracelet.

As for the court's actions themselves, I would explain this by increased public pressure over the politicization of justice. There is a lot of discussion in France about judges deliberately passing sentences against right-wing politicians in order to remove them from the race. Le Pen is not the first case here, we can recall [former French President Nicolas] Sarkozy and [former Prime Minister Francois] Fillon. In the end, the National Association has a backup option, which has been preparing for a long time, and that is Jordan Bardella. Therefore, the radical failure of the entire election campaign will not happen for the extreme right in France. But it will destabilize some part of the right-wing electorate and encourage them either not to attend the elections or to vote for another candidate, say, [former Prime Minister] Edouard Philippe or [former Interior Minister] Bruno Retaio.

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Sergey Fedorov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

— I think there is some political motivation in this court decision. Although, of course, the French Themis will deny this. But the problem is that Jordan Bardell, who is now the head of the National Unification (Marine Le Pen is the head of the National Unification parliamentary faction), had a higher rating than Marine Le Pen. And I have a feeling that the chances of a young politician, a French political star, becoming president were no lower or even higher than Marine Le Pen's.

I think maybe there's a hidden trick. If Marine Le Pen had not been given the opportunity to run for president, it would have strengthened the positions of people who were unhappy with the initial verdict of the court. They would have intensified even more and, perhaps, would have given greater momentum to Bardell's presidential campaign. That would be unprofitable for the French political establishment.

Ekaterina Narochnitskaya, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

— The situation is becoming quite complicated, as polls in recent months have shown a clear superiority of Jordan Bardell over his competitors and a very high probability of his victory in 2027. During this time, he formed his own circle of supporters, who primarily supported Marine Le Pen and saw her as a national leader and, possibly, a future president. Now, of course, the inevitable friction in the party will begin, which may lead to a split. But it will be fatal within the "National Association". This will dramatically weaken his position and may actually result in a loss.