France is burning - and Marine Le Pen laughs all the way to the ballot box

The riots in France, during which thousands of shops were looted, provide Marine Le Pen with a political opportunity ahead of the presidential elections, but her criminal conviction threatens to complicate the campaign.

France is in turmoil following riots during which thousands of shops were looted. Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, is trying to exploit the political crisis ahead of the presidential elections, in which the incumbent president Emmanuel Macron cannot run again. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, her party was once seen as a dangerous anti-establishment force, but now Macron is the one under pressure to reassure investors. Le Pen is leveraging her anti-immigration stance and blaming radicals from the far-left and young people from the poor suburbs, where the Muslim minority population lives, for the chaos. However, her path to the presidency is not simple: last July, an appeals court upheld her 2025 conviction for misuse of European Parliament funds. She was sentenced to three years in prison, one year of which will be served under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, which could force her to run her election campaign under judicial supervision.