A survey taken by pollster Ifop after Le Pen declared her candidacy found she would win the first round handily and then beat former center-right Prime Minister Edouard Philippe by 54 to 46 percent.
Le Pen was accused of illicitly using European Parliament funds to pay for assistants who worked on domestic party business as opposed to affairs in Brussels.
During her first public outing Wednesday morning after being found guilty by an appeals court, a defiant Le Pen said she would “not spend the campaign making legal analyses,” and insisted that nothing could make her go back on her decision to run for president.
Le Pen said the French population “knows the ins and outs” of the case, “which has been going on for 10 years,” and that it was therefore unlikely to move voters one way or the other.
Her opponents, however, will likely try to use the conviction against her. Gabriel Attal, a former prime minister now running for president, said he “belongs to a new generation of politicians for whom setting a good example and integrity are probably the most important values.”
Raphaël Glucksmann, a likely center-left candidate, denounced an “unprecedented situation.”
