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We're ending our live coverage of today's protests in France.

Here's a summary of the main events:

Senior leaders from the country's far-right National Rally party, including Marine Le Pen, have held a rally in central Paris.

It was organised to protest against a judge's decision to ban Le Pen from the 2027 presidential election after she was convicted of embezzlement last week.

The party's president Jordan Bardella was among the speakers at the demonstration. He described Le Pen's conviction as a "dark day" for the country.

Le Pen told the crowd her legal case was a politically motivated "witch hunt" and vowed to fight it. She also invoked American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Meanwhile, France's centrist Renaissance party and leftist groups also held separate rival counter-protests elsewhere in the city.

They criticised the National Rally's attacks on the judiciary and claimed Le Pen was playing the victim.

By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor

Marine Le Pen made one thing abundantly clear.  She is not going quietly.

She may have been disgraced in a Paris courtroom, convicted of embezzlement, sentenced and barred from office for five years. 

But there was no sense of shame or regret in her speech to the party faithful.  Nor would you expect there to be.  She is the victim of an establishment stitch-up, she believes, or claims to, and the crowds watching heartily agreed.

Le Pen was found guilty of being part of a huge and orchestrated campaign to swindle the European Parliament and its taxpayers, using phoney accounts to raise millions.

The judge in the case saw a politician who had long campaigned for tougher penalties for corrupt politicians and decided it only fitting to throw the book at her.

For political foes, watching their most feared enemy sent off the pitch, this is all very welcome.  Former prime minister Gabriel Attal told supporters at another rally that she stole money and should do the punishment.

But even Le Pen鈥檚 rivals are queasy about the five-year ban from office.  Some legal observers believe the judge went too far.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case it does nothing to ease the country鈥檚 political crisis.

Nothing to address the festering sense of unenfranchised grievance on the fringes of society that helped propel Le Pen to such popularity in the first place.

And other populists in France and abroad are exploiting this as a cause celebre for all that it鈥檚 worth.

Populists see society as divided between 鈥榯he people鈥� and corrupt elites governing them.  Le Pen鈥檚 plight fits their narrative perfectly.  

Not surprisingly, Le Pen鈥檚 speech was preceded by a series of short videos from other rightist populists, from Mateo Salvini in Italy to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.  In America, Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk have also pitched in. 

Le Pen may have been banished into the political wilderness but can still cause enormous trouble from there. 

French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet has been speaking just now to Sky News about her eyewitness impressions of today's Marine Le Pen rally.

She says the crowd was "pretty happy" in the spring sunshine and appeared to "really like" the far-right leader.

Moutet adds: "It was friendly, it was not a skinhead-type rally at all.

"It was in a bourgeois area of Paris next to the tomb of Napoleon and essentially... [there was] a sort of mature, populist electorate [who attended], which says a lot about the way French politics is evolving."

The demonstration also featured a speech by National Rally president Jordan Bardella.

However, Moutet describes his performance as "a bit lacklustre" and questions whether the party can be as successful if Le Pen takes a back seat.

"[He is a] very slick young man, he's very competent, he works very hard... but he's a bit devoid of emotion," she adds.

French left-wingers have mocked Marine Le Pen on social media, claiming her rally today was sparsely attended.

Claire Lejeune, an MP for La France Insoumise, wrote on X that the Paris square where the National Rally held its demonstration was "half empty".

She added: "No one is fooled by their hypocrisy."

The claim was disputed by the National Rally's Jordan Guitton, who alleged the photograph she posted had been taken before the start of the demonstration.

Organisers of a counter-protest involving Lejeune's party elsewhere in the city today claim to have attracted 15,000 supporters.

Leftist leader Jean-Luc M茅lenchon also wrote on X: "The mobilisation against the far right is now firmly and deeply under way.

"An immense force is available to reject the victimisation of Le Pen and the National Rally."

Further leftist demonstrations are planned across France on 1 May. 

The National Rally's protest was held in Place Vauban, central Paris, close to the Eiffel Tower.

Overlooking the square, as seen in the photograph above, is the Hotel des Invalides, a complex of museums and monuments that includes the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte.

French President Emmanuel Macron has appeared reluctant to comment publicly on his rival Marine Le Pen's legal troubles since she was found guilty of embezzlement last Monday.

It took him several days before he made his first remarks on the case 鈥� but his comments on Wednesday were behind closed doors, at a meeting of French ministers, and were only relayed to the public via his spokesperson.

Macron reportedly told the meeting that he believed the law was "the same for everyone" and that the judiciary was "independent鈥�.

He also criticised "threats" against judges as "absolutely unbearable and intolerable鈥� but said "all defendants have the right to legal recourse", according to the spokesperson.

Despite events in Paris today, it appears that the president is still keen to keep his distance and not get too drawn into the row 鈥� perhaps in order not to add fuel to the fire of Le Pen's claim that her conviction was politically motivated.

There's been no public comment yet from Macron on the protests and it is unclear if he will say anything. But he has been busy today posting on social media, including in the last few minutes on X.

The French leader made several posts about the war in Ukraine, including some written in Ukrainian, criticising Russia. 

He wrote: "These Russian strikes must end. We need a ceasefire as soon as possible. And we need strong action if Russia continues to stall and refuse peace."

As Marine Le Pen's National Rally held a demonstration in Paris earlier, two rival events in opposition to her party were also taking place.

The centrist Renaissance party held a gathering in the suburb of Saint-Denis, while there was also a leftist rally at the Place de la Republique in the capital.

Both rival demonstrations have now wrapped up.

Organisers of the leftist event estimate around 15,000 people attended.

Mr Attal told the crowd at his party's event: "Let us maintain this commitment to the morality of political life and to our institutions at a time when they are being challenged by the far right, which is gathering today to attack our judges, to attack our institutions."

Dominic Waghorn, our international affairs editor, is back.

He's offered his snap analysis of Le Pen's speech speaking immediately after she finished talking on Sky News.

Read it below:

"This was Marine Le Pen totally unbowed, despite the criminal disgrace and extraordinary events that went against her in the court.

"This is a woman who is determined to carry on fighting and is blaming the system.

"She evoked the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr which some people will find quite rich.

"This is a woman who was caught with her hand in the till, not once or twice, but convicted and sentenced for years of embezzlement.

"She siphoned off funds from the EU parliament and used that money, taxpayers' money effectively, to pay her party.

"As far as she's concerned, that's a conspiracy by politically motivated judges.

"The problem for Le Pen, most French people don't see it that way.

"According to a recent poll, 31% of people think the sentence is unjust.

"It leaves France at a huge political quandary because the woman all these people voted for when they voted for the National Rally... that woman has now been removed from the ticket.

"It's now been decapitated."

What next?

Waghorn continued: "There's no sign in the speech she's going to bow out now, but what does she do next?

"Does she wait for the appeal next year? That's an outside chance, the evidence did seem pretty compelling against her.

"Is she now going to hand over to Bardella, who spoke on the stage before her?

"The last option is does she now bring the house down with her?

"She has 125 MPs. She could turn them against the government in the national assembly.

"It'd be an act of anarchy and chaos and revenge.

"I don't think we got much of a clue for what she's going to do, except she's going to carry on fighting which I think her supporters wanted to hear her say.

"But they'll want to know what the plan is."

He added fears of potential violence between the National Rally rally and others "may be subsiding a little".

Marine Le Pen has just finished her speech.

"Long live the republic, long live France," she finished on.

The crowd then sang the French national anthem.

In her speech, Le Pen hit some typical far-right talking points, took aim at her enemies, talked up her supporters and proclaimed: "We are winning!"

It was very much a speech aimed at the converted.

Marine Le Pen is still speaking and has just said she likes to echo the words of Martin Luther King Jr.

While the comparison between a far-right French leader and a black civil rights hero might seem odd, it's not the first time she's referenced him.

Ahead of her speech, Le Pen made a video appearance for an anti-immigration Italian party at a meeting in Florence.

She evoked the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr then as well.

The far-right leader said earlier: "We will follow Martin Luther King as an example,".

Continuing the surprising comparison, she went on: "Our fight will be a peaceful fight, a democratic fight.

"We will follow Martin Luther King [Jr], who defended civil rights, as an example."

Marine Le Pen is still speaking in Paris. 

In front of crowds of National Rally faithful, she has repeatedly targeted the judicial system which convicted her.

At times the crowd booed when she mentioned the system.

She also repeated a Donald Trump criticism of her conviction - calling it a "witch hunt".

"What should have just been an administrative settlement within the European parliament has become a very harsh conviction," Le Pen said, adding she was convinced of her own righteousness. 

She repeated her previous claims: "This is not a decision of justice - this is a political decision."

Similar to Bardella, after talking down the judicial system repeatedly, she then condemned the violent threats the judge who convicted her received.

Le Pen dedicated a sizeable amount of her speech to damning the judicial system.

For context: 

Le Pen said she's convinced of her own righteousness and the decision was wrong.

Our international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said in our 2.45pm post: "She has a chance to appeal, but the evidence doesn't look very good [for her]."