‘Politicians have always been schemers’: upheld conviction fails to dent Le Pen’s popularity

Marine Le Pen in Paris on Wednesday when she announced her latest presidential campaign. Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/Sipa/Shutterstock

In the small French town of Montargis, Jean-Antoine, a retired decorator, was pleased Marine Le Pen had again shaken up French politics by launching a bid for the presidency, despite her legal woes.

“Even the judges said she didn’t personally profit from the money, it was for her party,” he said of Le Pen’s newly upheld conviction for embezzlement. “All politicians in France have always been schemers, it’s just a fact of life.”