Marine Le Pen delivers a speech at the end of her campaign kickoff rally as part of the party congress in Orléans on October 25, 2026.Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images

Le Pen casts herself as protector of France as troubles swirl – POLITICO

by · POLITICO

ORLEANS, France  — Far-right leader Marine Le Pen shed her anti-establishment radicalism on Sunday to portray herself as the guardian of France in her first presidential campaign rally in Orléans, south of Paris.

With polls showing her as the front-runner ahead of the scheduled April 2027 presidential election, Le Pen sought to reassure voters by promising to safeguard France as the country seethes with social unrest and stares down a looming debt crisis.

“Even if today the words that spring to mind are ruin, decline … riots and even chaos … we believe in our people and in France,” she said.