Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Distances Itself from Trump Ahead of 2027 French Elections

The French far right’s rela­tion­ship with Trump has shift­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly as Marine Le Pen’s Nation­al Ral­ly dis­tances itself from the con­tro­ver­sial US pres­i­dent ahead of France’s 2027 elec­tions. On 16 Sep­tem­ber 2025, For­eign Pol­i­cy report­ed that despite shared ide­o­log­i­cal ground on immi­gra­tion and nation­al­ism, Le Pen’s par­ty now views Trump as a polit­i­cal lia­bil­i­ty among French vot­ers who over­whelm­ing­ly dis­ap­prove of the Amer­i­can leader. The arti­cle begins:

Mar­tin, a 26-year-old teacher in the south­ern French town of Car­pen­tras, firm­ly sup­ports the far-right Nation­al Ral­ly (RN) par­ty. He vot­ed for Marine Le Pen, the par­ty’s fig­ure­head, in both rounds of the 2022 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion as well as the RN can­di­date in the first round of last year’s leg­isla­tive elec­tions. When it comes to U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, how­ev­er, he has more mixed feel­ings. “I do appre­ci­ate this iron will to show he’s the one lead­ing the world and that nobody else is going to tell him what to do or what to think or how the Unit­ed States should act,” said Mar­tin, who asked not to dis­close his last name for pro­fes­sion­al rea­sons. “He’s the type of strong­man we’d like to see in France, some­one who says he’s pro­tect­ing Amer­i­ca first and think­ing of Amer­i­ca first.” On the oth­er hand, Trump’s actu­al poli­cies have Mar­tin less enthused—in par­tic­u­lar, his tar­iffs and mas­sive cuts to the pub­lic sector.

Read more: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/16/france-far-right-national-rally-donald-trump-us-republicans-maga/

Key Points

• Four out of five French peo­ple have neg­a­tive views of Trump, includ­ing 57 per­cent of Nation­al Ral­ly sympathizers.
• Le Pen once sought an asso­ci­a­tion with Trump but now lim­its pub­lic praise due to his polar­iz­ing image.
• Nation­al Ral­ly can­celed Jor­dan Bardel­la’s CPAC appear­ance after Steve Ban­non’s Nazi salute controversy.
• Par­ty pri­or­i­tizes “de-demo­niza­tion” strat­e­gy to appear mod­er­ate rather than align with Trump’s extremism.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Links Trump to Global National Conservative Alliance in Europe

France’s Nation­al Ral­ly rep­re­sents a cen­tral pil­lar of the glob­al nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance through Marine Le Pen’s trans­for­ma­tion of the par­ty and its transna­tion­al con­nec­tions. Russ­ian state media has exten­sive­ly ampli­fied Le Pen’s posi­tions, crit­i­ciz­ing West­ern sup­port for Ukraine and NATO, posi­tion­ing her as a pre­ferred can­di­date who promised to leave the Atlantic alliance. The Nation­al Ral­ly has cul­ti­vat­ed direct sup­port from Don­ald Trump, who pub­licly backed Le Pen fol­low­ing her con­vic­tion for embez­zling EU funds, call­ing the court rul­ing a “Witch Hunt” and com­par­ing it to his own legal troubles.

Le Pen’s par­ty has estab­lished itself with­in the broad­er Euro­pean nation­al­ist net­work through the Patri­ots for Europe alliance, join­ing Vik­tor Orbán and oth­er far-right lead­ers in reject­ing EU fed­er­al­ism and pro­mot­ing a “Europe of nations” based on sov­er­eign­ty and secure bor­ders. At a major ral­ly in France, Le Pen declared “We are not provinces of an empire” while denounc­ing Brus­sels’ poli­cies on migra­tion and Euro­pean inte­gra­tion. How­ev­er, the alliance faces inter­nal ten­sions, as demon­strat­ed when Jor­dan Bardel­la can­celed his CPAC appear­ance after Steve Ban­non made what he described as a Nazi-like ges­ture, high­light­ing the par­ty’s efforts to dis­tance itself from extrem­ist associations.

The Nation­al Ral­ly’s role in the glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance reflects the broad­er rise of Trump-style pop­ulism in Europe, as both Le Pen and her suc­ces­sor Jor­dan Bardel­la cap­i­tal­ize on eco­nom­ic and migra­tion crises while cen­trist lead­ers lose ground. Despite polling as the like­ly win­ner of France’s 2027 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion before her con­vic­tion, Le Pen’s legal trou­bles have cre­at­ed uncer­tain­ty for both her par­ty and the wider Euro­pean far-right move­ment, though Trump’s sup­port exem­pli­fies how the transat­lantic nation­al­ist alliance con­tin­ues to merge U.S. pop­ulism with Euro­pean far-right politics.

Exter­nal References:

• Marine Le Pen’s Trump-style defi­ance over her con­vic­tion leaves France and its far right in a bind
• The French Far Right’s Awk­ward Dance Around Trump
• Le Pen in Madrid: “The Pow­er of Europe Lies in the Pow­er of Its Nations”

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.