Marine Le Pen has promised to lead France towards a national “rebirth” as she closed the National Rally’s congress in Orléans on Sunday, combining an optimistic vision of the country’s future with hardline pledges on immigration, security and sovereignty.

Addressing supporters on Sunday afternoon, the far-right party’s candidate for the 2027 presidential election invoked Joan of Arc as she urged them to overcome what she described as a mood of resignation and defeatism.

“No defeat is final as long as a people refuses to resign themselves to it,” she said in the city closely associated with the medieval heroine.

Le Pen, whose conviction for misappropriating European public funds was recently upheld on appeal, sought to present her campaign as a broader project of national renewal.

“Our only guiding principle is France, its recovery and the happiness of the French people,” she told supporters.

Drawing another parallel with Joan of Arc, she promised to “free minds from the crippling notion that victory is impossible”.

Her speech brought the two-day congress to a close under heavy security, while around a hundred anti-fascist demonstrators gathered several kilometres away. Orléans tightens security ahead of far-right National Rally party congress A programme of national renewal Le Pen described her proposed path as a “Renaissance for France”, promising to lift the country towards greater security, prosperity and creativity.

Alongside that message, she attacked what she called “new forms of obscurantism”, grouping together Islamism, the far left and hostility towards technological progress.

She described the latter as a mistrust of progress expressed through “punitive environmentalism or political nihilism”.

Le Pen also promised changes to the way France is governed, advocating greater use of referendums and proportional representation with a bonus for the winning party.

“If we want power, my friends, it is not for ourselves, but to return it to the people,” she said, arguing that her programme would reconcile citizens with politics.

How appeal court verdict against Le Pen puts her back in the running for 2027 On immigration and public order, she adopted a more combative tone. Presenting herself as a defender of French ways of life, she condemned antisocial behaviour and promised the “automatic and permanent deportation” of foreign nationals who commit offences.

She also pledged a ban on what she called “communitarianism” – a term used in French political debate to describe communities organising around separate religious or ethnic identities.

On pensions, Le Pen stopped short of repeating her previous pledge to bring the retirement age down to 60. Instead, she promised not to raise it beyond 64 and said she wanted young people to enter the labour market earlier.

Turning to foreign policy, she pledged to make France “a nation of peace” and rejected “wars that are not our own”, without specifying which conflicts she meant. France’s military strength, she said, should serve “harmony between peoples”.

She also reaffirmed the RN’s principle of “national priority” and insisted that the French Constitution must take precedence over outside authorities.

“No text, no authority, and certainly not a foreign one – not even a European one – will take precedence over it,” she said. That position points towards a confrontation with the European Union should she win the presidency next year.

‘We want to stop being afraid’: thousands join anti-RN demonstration in Orléans Protest under heavy police watch Away from the congress, around a hundred anti-fascist activists gathered early on Sunday afternoon outside an administrative detention centre, roughly four kilometres from the Co’Met arena where Le Pen spoke.

The prefecture had banned gatherings across a wide perimeter around the congress venue and in several neighbouring towns. The protesters assembled outside that restricted area.

Police reportedly used batons during a brief attempt by some protesters to block a road. The group later turned back under heavy police escort.

“We cannot let a fascist party hold a conference as if nothing were wrong, as if it were just any ordinary party,” said Fleur, a 29-year-old demonstrator.

The gathering followed a peaceful anti-RN march on Saturday that drew between 13,000 and 26,000 people, according to different estimates. Around 3,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed in Orléans over the weekend.