WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump offered support to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Thursday after a Paris court earlier this week convicted her and two dozen figures from her National Rally (RN) party of embezzling European Union funds.

France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement and barred from running in elections for five years.

PARIS (AP) — For years, Marine Le Pen stood at the gates of power — poised, relentless and rising. She stripped the French far right of its old symbols, sanded down its roughest edges and built in its place a sleek, disciplined machine with the single goal of winning the country’s presidency.

Or a solid French moniker that would not have marked him out. But no, Luisa and Olivier named their only son Jordan. “Seriously? Are you really called Jordan?” asked an incredulous party hack he met in Paris.

Much of the MAGAverse had already raged against the conviction soon after it was handed down on Monday. But Trump waited until late Thursday—the same day global stock markets plummeted in response to his universal tariff declaration—to finally take up Le Pen’s cause.

TOULON, France (Reuters) - Yvon Castel says he has voted for the far-right National Rally for years, but is less than impressed by the tactics its leader Marine Le Pen has chosen to try to fight her way out of a legal judgement barring her way to 2027 elections.