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On a Tuesday in mid-2026, a Paris court of appeal handed down a ruling that sent shockwaves across French political life: it upheld far-right nationalist leader Marine Le Pen’s conviction for misappropriation of public funds, but slashed the original five-year ban on running for public office, clearing a path for her to launch a historic bid for the French presidency. By early Wednesday morning, France was still reeling from the rapid cascade of political drama that followed: within hours of the verdict, Le Pen defied all expectations of her political demise and officially confirmed she would contest the 2027 presidential election, immediately rolling out her social media campaign to supporters across the country.

Le Pen’s campaign branding leans heavily into deliberate political messaging. Her online campaign poster, emblazoned with the slogan “Pour la France” (“For France”) and subtitled “La Renaissance” (“The Rebirth”), features Le Pen smiling with outstretched arms against the backdrop of France’s blue-white-red tricolor. The choice of “Renaissance” is no accident: it is the official name of incumbent President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist political party, a sharp jab at the leader who has repeatedly categorized Le Pen’s National Rally as an extremist political force, and who promised upon his first election to eliminate voter support for far-right extremism.

For years, Le Pen has built her political brand around a populist divide: framing her movement as the voice of “the people” and “patriots” pushing back against a detached “metropolitan elite” and what she dismisses as “globalist” interests. Her core platform centers on putting French citizens first in policy, a message that has resonated deeply with a large swathe of the French electorate disillusioned with traditional mainstream politics and frustrated by widening societal inequality. This is not Le Pen’s first attempt at the presidency: she lost twice to Macron in 2017 and 2022, but Macron is constitutionally barred from running for a third term, and current polling puts Le Pen in a stronger position than ever before. She has also repeatedly defied predictions of her political end, bouncing back from major setbacks—including a poorly received 2017 televised debate against Macron—to rebuild her movement and grow her support.

Prior to the appeal ruling, most political observers had predicted the court would reaffirm the full public office ban, effectively ending Le Pen’s decades-long political career. Instead, the court left the decision to run to Le Pen, only requiring her to wear an electronic monitoring tag for 12 months as part of her sentence. Le Pen responded to the verdict with characteristic defiance: in a televised address shortly after the ruling, she confirmed her candidacy, announced she would appeal the conviction to France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, and refused to wear the ankle tag until the court issues its final ruling, arguing the French electorate should be the ultimate judge of her candidacy.

Critics across the French political spectrum have slammed Le Pen’s move as a Trumpian power play and a high-stakes political gamble. Legal and political analysts note Le Pen and her legal team are likely counting on the Court of Cassation’s famously slow procedural timeline: if a ruling does not come until spring 2027, Le Pen could already have won the presidency and gained the legal immunity that comes with the office for a full five-year term. However, the court could also choose to expedite proceedings given the unprecedented political stakes of the case. If a ruling comes before the election and requires Le Pen to wear the electronic tag during the final stretch of campaigning, it could remind swing voters of her embezzlement conviction, which involved €4.1 million (£3.5 million) in misused public funds drawn from French taxpayers. While the tag would not alienate her loyal base, it could turn off the moderate conservative voters Le Pen has worked aggressively to court in recent years.

Left-wing lawmaker Francois Ruffin, leader of the Debout! Party, summed up the opposition’s position: “She has been found guilty twice of embezzling public money from French taxpayers. That makes her a criminal, and she has no business running for the highest office in the country.”

The outcome of France’s 2027 presidential election carries major implications far beyond France’s borders. As the European Union’s second-largest economy, a nuclear-armed military power, and a key geopolitical actor at a moment of rising global tension with Russia and China, France’s leadership shapes the entire trajectory of European and transatlantic policy. Le Pen and her 30-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella—who Le Pen has tapped as her preferred prime minister if she wins—are both openly Eurosceptic and have expressed skepticism of NATO, continued French military support for Ukraine, and the major increase in defense spending that Macron has pledged. These policy positions have already sparked deep anxiety among European allies, who view a Le Pen presidency as a major shift that could reshape the European political order. While Le Pen is not guaranteed victory, current polling shows she enters the race as one of the most competitive candidates, with a clear path to the Elysee Palace.

As NATO leaders gather in Ankara, Turkey, for their annual summit this week, a landmark UK-led multinational weapons development program has taken center stage. Twelve allied nations including the United Kingdom have committed to invest more than £37 billion ($50 billion) over the next decade to develop a cutting-edge long-range precision missile system, a project billed as one of the most ambitious defensive upgrades in the alliance’s recent history.

The newly announced Deep Precision Strike initiative will be a core topic of discussion among participating leaders on Wednesday, marking one of the key policy announcements of Keir Starmer’s final NATO summit as UK prime minister. Ahead of the meeting, Starmer has positioned the program as a unifying European-led effort to bolster collective defense. “This UK-led initiative will help bring European allies together to keep NATO safe for years to come,” the prime minister said, framing the project as a critical step toward delivering on his pledge to build “a stronger, more European NATO.”

Designed to strike high-value enemy targets with extreme accuracy at ranges up to 300 kilometers (nearly 200 miles), with potential future extensions out to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), the new missile system is intended to disrupt enemy supply lines, neutralize key military infrastructure, and deter potential aggressors. Like many large-scale advanced military development projects, the Deep Precision Strike system is not projected to enter operational service until the 2030s. It builds on the UK’s existing long-term defense commitments, which include a £300 billion Defence Investment Plan allocated through 2030.

The summit comes amid growing tensions between NATO and Russia, and mounting pressure from US President Donald Trump on alliance members to increase defense spending. Last year, nearly all NATO members agreed to a target of spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035, with an updated target of 5% for total defense and security spending by the same deadline. Starmer is expected to face criticism from Trump for failing to release a concrete timeline to hit the 3.5% target during this week’s meetings.

In June, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched a six-month strategic review of US force posture across Europe, a move aligned with Trump’s long-standing position that European allies must carry a larger share of the continent’s defense burden. Ahead of the summit, Starmer has sought to shore up support for European-led defense integration within NATO, emphasizing the growing threat Russia poses to alliance territory. UK government data shows NATO fighter jets have scrambled more than 700 times this year alone to intercept Russian aircraft approaching allied airspace, while Russian military activity near UK territorial waters has jumped 30% compared to previous periods.

“Whilst NATO did not seek confrontation with Russia, it must be ready to defend every ally,” Starmer is set to tell fellow leaders. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper expanded on the strategic purpose of the new missile program, noting that the capability would allow allies to disrupt the core military logistics that sustain offensive operations. “At Ankara we are sending a clear message to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin; NATO is stronger, more European and ready to defend our citizens against the long-term threat posed by him and the Russian state,” Cooper said.

The initiative also aligns with lessons drawn from Ukraine’s ongoing defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its third year. On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used his summit address to urge allies to accelerate deliveries of urgently needed air defense systems, as Russia ramps up airstrikes across Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has already demonstrated the game-changing impact of long-range strike capabilities, carrying out repeated attacks on Russian oil refineries, logistics hubs, and military positions deep inside Russian territory. These strikes have caused widespread fuel shortages and power disruptions in Russia, and significantly degraded Moscow’s ability to sustain its offensive operations in Ukraine, according to a Downing Street briefing.

“Ukraine’s Armed Forces have proved that the effective use of long-range systems can have game-changing impacts on the battlefield, giving the Armed Forces the ability to degrade enemy forces far behind the frontline,” a Number 10 spokesperson said. “Ukrainian long-range strikes, such as those on key logistics hubs, have significantly impacted Russia’s ability to sustain their offensives.”

For its part, the Kremlin has responded to the summit’s agenda with a firm rejection of the alliance’s confrontational framing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Russia would closely monitor all discussions and outcomes from the Ankara gathering, reaffirming that Moscow would continue its military operation in Ukraine until all its stated objectives are met. Peskov dismissed new weapons pledges to Ukraine as unable to alter the course of the conflict, noting that most summit statements about Russia have been adversarial rather than constructive. “To our regret, these were not statements about constructive engagement and dialogue but rather statements of a confrontational nature,” Peskov said. He added that Russia still views a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict as the preferable outcome.

On the eve of a critical NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, a sudden announcement from U.S. President Donald Trump upended months of careful planning by alliance leaders, throwing a gathering meant to celebrate rising defense spending and unified support for Ukraine into geopolitical chaos. Late Tuesday, not long after leaving a welcoming dinner hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for all 32 NATO member leaders, Trump ordered a new round of military strikes against Iran and revoked the export license that allowed Tehran to sell its crude oil on global markets. The U.S. action came in retaliation for recent attacks that damaged three commercial merchant vessels in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, and it immediately highlighted the extreme fragility of a temporary ceasefire deal that had paused months of open conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Unusual for a sitting U.S. president, Trump authorized the military action while traveling abroad; the only recent precedent came in 2011, when former President Barack Obama approved Libya strikes during an official visit to Brazil. Trump did not issue any direct public statement on the strikes on Tuesday night, but the move was not entirely unforeseen: European NATO allies and Canada had spent weeks warning that Trump could suddenly escalate tensions over the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict, a conflict they were never consulted on before it began.

Relations between Trump and many alliance members have already been strained by his past criticism of NATO’s Iran policy. When several allies refused to grant U.S. forces open access to their military bases for operations against Iran, Trump publicly called NATO a “paper tiger” and demanded unwavering loyalty from member states. Speaking during a bilateral meeting with Erdogan earlier Tuesday, Trump doubled down on that critique, confirming his public questioning of ally commitments. “Italy turned us down and Germany turned us down and France turned us down,” he said. “And that’s OK. But, you know, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re not there for us?” Trump added that his request for base access had been a test of alliance solidarity, a remark that deepened unease among participating leaders.

The summit was originally structured to showcase NATO unity at a moment of heightened global risk, as Russia continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and fears grow that other European nations could face future aggression. To pre-empt Trump’s long-standing complaints that the U.S. carries an unfair share of NATO’s defense burden, alliance leadership had worked for weeks to frame progress on spending as a win for the U.S. president. Last month, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte traveled to Washington D.C. to promote what he called the “Trump Trillion” — the $1.2 trillion in additional defense spending that European allies and Canada have committed to since Trump first took office in 2017. As leaders arrived in Ankara, Rutte even hosted a public event to highlight planned spending projects, a large share of which will go to U.S. defense contractors, generating thousands of American jobs in the process.

Despite these outreach efforts, NATO diplomats and officials acknowledge they remain bracing for new public criticism from Trump. Tensions rose even before the summit opened when Trump reopened a long-simmering dispute with Denmark, a core NATO ally, repeating his claim that the U.S. should take control of Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish island. The remark struck at the heart of NATO’s founding principle, which is based on mutual respect for member state territory and collective defense against external aggression.

Trump’s core grievance against NATO remains his argument that the U.S. bears too much of the alliance’s defense cost. Last year’s summit saw allies agree to a new target of investing 5% of total gross domestic product in defense-related spending: 3.5% for formal defense budgets, and 1.5% for upgrading critical infrastructure including roads, bridges, and ports to enable rapid movement of troops and equipment during a crisis. Ahead of this year’s gathering, Rutte demanded all member states submit detailed, credible plans to meet the new spending targets. New NATO data released Tuesday shows that Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, and the Czech Republic are already at risk of pushback from the Trump administration, as they continue to fall short of the alliance’s original 2% of GDP defense spending target.

The Trump administration is pushing for a restructuring of the alliance it calls “NATO 3.0,” a leaner, more combat-ready framework where European states take full responsibility for their own conventional security, including support for Ukraine’s war effort, while the U.S. continues to provide its nuclear deterrent umbrella. European allies and Canada still lack clarity, however, on how large a drawdown of U.S. troop deployments in Europe Trump intends to carry out. The Pentagon has launched a six-month review of U.S. force presence on the continent, and the scale of any cuts will reportedly depend on how quickly allies increase their spending and whether they agree to expand U.S. access to their military bases.

Alongside the tensions over Iran and spending, the summit has also drawn attention to Ukraine’s ongoing push for NATO membership. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is scheduled to meet one-on-one with Trump in Ankara on Wednesday, issued a renewed appeal for membership on Tuesday, arguing that Ukraine’s battle-tested armed forces would add significant strength to the alliance. Zelenskyy highlighted Ukraine’s operational capabilities, including its ability to strike deep inside Russian territory and target key Russian energy infrastructure such as oil refineries, claiming that Ukrainian forces eliminate roughly 30,000 Russian troops on average each month. Many NATO members in northern, central, and eastern Europe share growing concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin, bogged down and unable to secure a decisive victory in Ukraine, could launch a large-scale hybrid attack combining conventional military action with cyber and disinformation tactics across the European continent.

Beyond NATO business and the Iran escalation, Trump has a full schedule of bilateral meetings on the summit’s sidelines. He is set to hold talks with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former insurgent leader whose offensive ousted long-time autocrat Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Despite al-Sharaa’s past ties to al-Qaida, Trump has already publicly backed the new Syrian leader as he works to rebuild the war-ravaged country and restore diplomatic relations with Western nations. Trump has repeatedly claimed that al-Sharaa would be more effective at rooting out the Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah from Lebanon than the Israeli military, a remark that has sparked deep alarm in both Lebanon and Israel. Al-Sharaa has repeatedly rejected that claim, saying he has no interest in conducting such an operation.