Near a roast chicken stand at a rural market, Jocelyn Dessigny was giving out leaflets bearing a photograph of the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and the words “Save democracy!” “It is a political attack,” he said of Le Pen’s criminal conviction this week. After a two-month trial in Paris, Le Pen was found guilty of organising a system of fake job contracts to embezzle more than €4m (£3m) of European parliament funds between 2004 and 2016. Judges placed an immediate ban on her taking part in elections for five years, sparking fury from Le Pen, who said they...