PARIS — As the French presidential election campaign kicks into gear unusually early ahead of the 2027 ballot, the far-right National Rally will be stuck the sidelines until summer waiting to find out if their candidate will be Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella.

Clarity on timing emerged Thursday when a court announced it would deliver a verdict on July 7 in Le Pen’s ongoing appeal of a five-year election ban that knocked her out of the race.

The situation is becoming increasingly awkward, as Le Pen has spent the past month confined to the courtroom while her protégé Jordan Bardella, the party’s “Plan B” candidate, tackles the interviews, meetings and public appearances expected of a frontline contender.

“I’m more than walking on eggshells,” one of Bardella’s closest advisers said last week. The adviser, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics. He said he was “balancing each one of [Bardella’s] words” to avoid giving the impression that the party was already ruling Le Pen out as a candidate, for all that her prospects of a successful appeal appear to be diminishing.

Le Pen has pledged to make a final call on her candidacy as soon as the appeal decision is in, and in recent days has hinted she’s unlikely to fight a ban if the court upholds it.

“I’m not going to risk killing the presidential election,” Le Pen told a group of reporters in the courtroom last week.

A close Le Pen ally admitted that the party knows “the waiting period will be trying.”

“But that’s no excuse not to start preparing for the campaign,” the ally said.

A new set of challenges

Le Pen formally launched her previous presidential campaign in April 2021, 11 months before the 2022 election. The National Rally likely won’t be able to announce a 2027 campaign that early again unless the court dramatically expedites its work.

The prolonged uncertainty appears to be working against Le Pen, whose was found guilty last year of illicitly using European Parliament funds to pay for assistants who solely did domestic political work.

A recent survey by pollster Odoxa found that 69 percent of National Rally supporters now believe Bardella would be a stronger candidate than Le Pen. According to the same poll, Bardella also enjoys higher approval ratings than his mentor across party lines — and, unlike Le Pen, is viewed positively by a majority of voters backing the conservative Les Républicains party, whose support the far right would need to win the race.

Over the weekend, as Bardella traveled to southern France to support a candidate in a mayoral race ahead of nationwide local elections next month, he was greeted by a dense crowd chanting “Jordan [Bardella] at the Elysée,” French media reported.

In an interview during the trip with broadcaster BFMTV, Bardella said he would “always remain entirely loyal to Marine Le Pen,” adding that his party would be competitive in the next presidential election “no matter what happens, even though everything is being done to stop us.”

The French far right has long complained that the system is stacked against it, and sees the case against Le Pen as an example of this.

The National Rally faces the added challenge of having to prepare two separate presidential campaigns at the same time. The Le Pen ally quoted above said the party’s strategy for Le Pen’s fourth bid at the Elysée would look significantly different from its approach to the 30-year-old Bardella, who would be taking his first shot at the presidency.

“A new candidate means new storytelling, a new pitch,” the Le Pen ally said. “You can’t just go off what was previously decided upon.”