Less than a year before France’s presidential election, the Rassemblement National (RN) is confronting two challenges that will shape its path to power. The first is Marine Le Pen’s legal woes, after a court ruled on Tuesday that she can run for president next year, provided she wears an electronic tagging bracelet.

The second is how the party will pay for the campaign.

“We are continuing our discussions with several French and European banks,” Pfeffer said. “As loans from private individuals are prohibited for financing a presidential election campaign, and the National Rally does not have sufficient funds of its own, the €10.7 million bank loan is essential to finance its campaign for both rounds of the presidential election.”

But the uncertainty surrounding Le Pen’s legal future has made negotiations all the more difficult, even if the loan could be reimbursable by the French state.

The stakes reach beyond France, as the next presidential election could redefine the EU’s political centre of gravity. An RN victory would give one of Europe’s most controversial nationalist, radical hard right political parties control of one of the EU’s biggest and most powerful countries for the first time.

Yet the party enters that race with a financing model that still depends heavily on public subsidies, private lenders, and institutions it so often criticises.

Diversification needed

The party is still heavily dependent on state subsidies and election reimbursements to finance its operations. According to its latest accounts filed with the French campaign finance watchdog CNCCFP, more than 54% of its income came from public funding linked to election results for fiscal year 2024.

Its rapidly expanding electorate has not translated yet into an equally strong fundraising base, as membership dues accounted for 16.4% of revenues and individual donations remained particularly modest in 2024 compared with its electoral weight (only 5.5% that same year).

Pfeffer said the party was seeking to further increase memberships and donations, which are expected to reach €6.1 million in 2025. He added the run-up to the presidential election and the party’s October 2026 congress would “contribute significantly” to those efforts.

Unlike in the US or several other European countries, French political parties have limited fundraising options: companies, associations and foreign entities cannot donate, and individual donations to the presidential race are capped at €4,600 per person for the campaign and €7,500 per person for a party.

Parties can borrow from private individuals in general, but those loans are closely regulated and are intended to complement, not replace, bank credit. Crucially, they are allowed for all elections but the presidential one, Pfeffer pointed out.

As a result, a commercial loan is often the only practical way to finance a presidential campaign. The loan is later reimbursed by the state if the candidate reaches 5% of votes and if CNCCFP greenlights its accounting.

But bank financing has proven difficult for RN, which has in the past taken loans from Russian or Hungarian banks as, it claimed, French banks refused to back them. A 2018 report by two of France’s top government oversight bodies pointed out that RN’s difficulties mostly came “questions over [its] capacity to reimburse its debt” given “…that the National Rally’s financial position has still not recovered (heavy debt, negative equity, outstanding loans), despite the issue having been raised for years.”

An €11 million hole

The RN’s balance sheet and its debt management do tell a challenging story. It is by far the French party that has accumulated the most debt, 2024 figures from CNCCFP show.

The party ended owing more than twice what it owns, with €18,9 million in debts against €7,9 million in assets, leaving it with negative net assets of more than €11 million. It also has a €516,000 operating deficit, meaning that its operating costs exceed the amount of cash that comes in. The figures are partly explained by the electoral calendar, as 2024 was a campaign year, when parties had to front costs later reimbursed by the state.

In comparison, on the mainstream conservative right, Les Républicains had a nearly €3 million debt for the year 2024, and the Greens €4 million debt.

Another distinct trait of RN is that much of its debt stems from loans by private individuals, a financing model the party increasingly adopted after years of arguing that French banks refused to lend to it.

A lot of these private loans remained overdue in 2024, the French campaign watchdog said.

“They must have accumulated a lot of debt that was difficult to raise and therefore very expensive,” a French banker said. “As soon as their credit quality improves, the banks will turn a blind eye to the rest.”

Pfeffer said the party’s finances had “steadily improved” since 2022. He said the 2025 accounts showed €13.7 million in liabilities against €9 million in assets, adding that debt had since fallen to €8 million and was expected to reach €5 million by the end of 2025, before being fully repaid by April 2027.

There is also the financial impact of the RN’s legal troubles beyond the appeal. Ongoing court cases and provisions linked to judicial proceedings may further constrain the party’s room for manoeuvre.

While RN paid the €5.4 million it had set aside to reimburse the European Parliament for embezzlement of funds, Pfeffer said, and has provisioned €1 million for the fine in the same case. Several investigations remain open, including scrutiny of its financing. In 2024, the party spent €2.1 million on lawyers. The result is a growing pressure on a party already struggling to secure the money needed for 2027.

(bw, mm)