Le Pen confirms 2027 presidential bid as RN courts German conservatives

Marine Le Pen declared her candidacy for the 2027 French presidential election on Tuesday evening, 8 July 2026, during a televised interview. The announcement arrived within hours of a Paris appeals court confirming her conviction for embezzlement of European Parliament funds and ordering her to wear an electronic ankle monitor. Le Pen, who leads the Rassemblement National (RN) group in the National Assembly, had previously ruled out running while subject to such a measure. Her decision to proceed anyway signals a calculation that the political moment outweighs the legal handicap.

The conviction and its immediate aftermath

The court ruling stems from a long-running investigation into the use of European Parliament assistants for party political work in France. Le Pen was first convicted in 2024; the appeals court upheld the verdict and the requirement to wear a monitoring bracelet. The sentence does not, under current French law, bar her from standing for the presidency, though it complicates the logistics of a national campaign. Le Pen's decision to run also clears the way for Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old RN president and her political protégé, to remain as party leader rather than becoming the presidential candidate himself. Bardella had been widely tipped as the RN's standard-bearer if Le Pen stood aside.

Polling advantage and the runoff calculus

Opinion surveys consistently place the RN candidate between 32% and 38% in the first round of voting, scheduled for April 2027. That range would represent a larger lead over the second-placed contender than Le Pen achieved in either 2017 or 2022, when she reached the runoff but lost to Emmanuel Macron. Macron is constitutionally barred from a third term. The most frequently cited opponent for a second-round duel is Édouard Philippe, the former prime minister who now leads the centre-right Horizons party. Philippe would need to reconstruct the 'republican front' that has twice blocked the RN, assembling a coalition that stretches from the moderate left to the centre-right. Jacob Ross of the German Council on Foreign Relations told DW that the traditional blocking dynamic 'has grown weaker and weaker in recent years' and that 'the likelihood (that the RN will also win the runoff) is greater than ever before, that's for sure.'

The German pivot: Bardella courts the CDU/CSU

While Le Pen's domestic campaign takes shape, the RN's international posture has shifted conspicuously toward Berlin. In May 2026, Bardella granted an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he explicitly praised Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a former European Parliament lawmaker, and spoke of 'ideological common ground.' Bardella cited joint criticism of the EU's Green Deal climate programme and the handling of migration flows. He also welcomed Germany's reintroduction of temporary border controls, a measure the RN has long advocated. Earlier in the year, Bardella met the German ambassador in Paris, Stephan Steinlein, for formal talks. The German Chancellor's Office has not commented publicly on the overtures. Merz, for his part, continues to emphasise the value of European integration and has not reciprocated the praise.

Distancing from the AfD and the limits of convergence

The RN's outreach to the CDU/CSU is accompanied by a deliberate rupture with the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Both Le Pen and Bardella have described the AfD as too extreme and excluded it from their joint European Parliament group, Identity and Democracy, before its reconfiguration after the 2024 elections. The two parties share opposition to immigration and scepticism toward EU supranational authority, but the RN's 'de-demonisation' strategy, a term Le Pen herself uses, requires shedding the antisemitic and overtly racist associations that marked her father Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership. That strategy also demands credible centre-right interlocutors in Europe's largest economy. The CDU/CSU, however, maintains a strict firewall against cooperation with the AfD at home and has shown no appetite for a formal alliance with the RN abroad.

Historical friction and the Franco-German engine

The RN's warmth toward Berlin marks a departure from a long tradition on the French far right, which has often portrayed Germany as an overbearing hegemon that 'pulls the strings in Brussels and through the European Commission, and weakens the French position through legislation and administrative acts,' as Ross puts it. That rhetoric mirrored the hostility of the French far left toward German economic dominance. Bardella's praise for Merz is intended to signal that a future RN government would be a pragmatic partner, leaving campaign rhetoric behind. Whether the German side accepts that framing remains an open question. The CDU/CSU's European policy has historically been anchored in the Franco-German motor, but it has also relied on a French partner committed to deeper integration, a commitment the RN's platform does not obviously share.

Potential flashpoints: energy, budgets and climate

Ross identifies several concrete areas where an RN presidency could collide with German interests. France's electricity system relies almost entirely on nuclear power, whereas Germany has phased out nuclear generation and invested heavily in renewables. An RN government could seek to withdraw from the integrated European electricity market or resist further market coupling, disrupting cross-border flows. On the EU budget, RN leaders have floated drastic cuts to French contributions, which would raise the question of whether Germany, already the largest net contributor, would have to fill the gap. Climate policy offers a third fault line: the RN's hostility to the Green Deal aligns with CDU/CSU criticisms of specific regulations, but the RN's underlying rejection of EU climate targets goes further than Merz's position. These are not abstract disagreements; they would shape the agenda of every European Council summit and every Council of Ministers formation.

The Meloni precedent and the road ahead

Ross suggests the trajectory could resemble Italy's experience with Giorgia Meloni. Before her 2022 election victory, European commentary warned of a post-fascist turn; once in office, Meloni became what Merz now calls a 'strategic partner' at both European and bilateral levels. Ross expects 'a certain loss of trust and a lot of friction' but concludes that 'it won't be the case that everything will fall apart if an RN candidate actually wins.' The next eighteen months will test that hypothesis. Le Pen must campaign under judicial supervision, the RN must maintain its polling lead without a major misstep, and the French centre-right must decide whether Philippe or another figure can unite the anti-RN vote. In Berlin, the Chancellor's Office will prepare contingency plans for a French president whose party has spent a decade defining itself against the EU mainstream, and who now says it wants to work with Germany's conservatives.