No longer banned from next year’s presidential election, Le Pen is a far more formidable force than her understudy, Jordan Bardella

France loves a battle-scarred survivor. Charles de Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac clawed their way back from political failure to become presidents of the republic. There is a significant chance that Marine Le Pen will be next.

Now that the Paris appeal court has unshackled her from an electoral ban for fraud, the far-right veteran has double appeal in the race for the French presidency next year. She will run, as always, as an outsider and a scourge of the political elites – despite continuously holding electoral office since 1998. She can also now pose as a “miraculous survivor”, a “mother courage” and “a battling granny”, as senior French political figures, including former ministers, described her to me during recent conversations in Paris.

Mujtaba Rahman is the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm

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