President of the French far-right National Rally party Marine Le Pen gestures to the crowd on January 13, 2019 in Paris | Jacques Demarthon/AFP via Getty Images Marine Le Pen unveils far-right candidates for European election National Rally hopes to win over supporters of the Yellow Jacket movement.

Fresh faces, trusted lieutenants and defectors from France's mainstream conservative party — Marine Le Pen's team of candidates is ready to go for the European election.

The leader of the French National Rally unveiled her selection Sunday at Paris' Maison de la Mutualité conference center, showing her hand months before voters head to the polls in 27 countries to elect a new European Parliament.

With a 23-year-old party devotee at the head of her list and a transplant from the mainstream conservative Les Républicains also running, Le Pen is betting she can capitalize on her party's existing appeal with youth voters while winning new support from conservatives.

Le Pen also hopes to benefit from a "Yellow Jacket" effect, telling the Telegraph in an interview Sunday that popular anger that has fueled nine rounds of protests against President Emmanuel Macron should translate into a high score for her party in the European election.

“In general I pull electoral lists from the top, this time I’m pushing from the bottom as my name is second last,” Le Pen, who is running herself, told the newspaper.

To lead her list of candidates, Le Pen tapped Jordan Bardella, a young party spokesman and regional councilor from the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of Paris, who joined the Euroskeptic party at the age of 16 and devoted himself entirely to Le Pen's agenda.

The clean-cut Bardella was in charge of drafting Le Pen's campaign plan for immigrant-heavy suburbs during her failed bid for the presidency in 2017. His suggestions, focused on "living peacefully in the suburbs," were discarded but he won favor after the election thanks largely to his strict adherence to party messaging during radio appearances and the fact that he has appeared in Yellow Jacket rallies since the movement's start last November.

Le Pen is also running with MEP and party executive board member Nicolas Bay, who represents continuity in a party that changed its name to "National Rally" from "National Front" in June and has struggled to deflect accusations of being racist and xenophobic.

However, the biggest change for Le Pen is relying on several candidates who have defected to the National Rally from the mainstream conservative Les Républicains, including former MP and well-known Kremlin sympathizer Thierry Mariani.

As far back as 2010, the MEP had espoused positions that brought him close to the National Front, as it was then named.

"For the first time there is really something at stake in the European election" — Thierry Mariani, former French MP

Mariani, who joined Le Pen's party earlier this week, opposes immigration, is openly Euroskeptic and has traveled to Syria to meet with President Bashar al-Assad. Mariani is also a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a regular guest on the Kremlin-backed RT news network, and has visited Crimea three times since the territory was annexed by Russia in 2014.

"For the first time there is really something at stake in the European election," he told Le Parisien daily in a recent interview. "Until now, the left, the [European People's Party] and the Socialists shared power. This time, with Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orbán, there is a real alternative. The EPP, which has a majority, can lose its majority or be forced to enter certain alliances."

The split from Les Républicains by Mariani and former MP Jean-Paul Garraud cements a new political dynamic on the French right. Hard-right politicians who balked at joining Le Pen previously due to her party's reputation have now made the jump, potentially widening her appeal to a section of conservative voters who shared misgivings about giving her their vote.

Those who remain are lining up behind Laurent Wauquiez, a self-avowed "populist" who aims to take on both Le Pen and Macron's centrist La République En Marche party in the upcoming vote. And those who harbored doubts about both Wauquiez and Le Pen have joined Macron, with former Prime Minister Alain Juppé rallying behind En Marche more than a year after current Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

Le Pen's party has traditionally fared very strongly in European elections. In 2014, her party won 25 percent of the French vote in the European Parliament election after running a fiercely Euroskeptic campaign calling for France to exit the eurozone. Current polls show Le Pen's party leading the board ahead of Macron's centrist group, although campaigning has yet to begin.

While MEPs are elected to vote on Europe-wide legislation, the campaign itself is focused mainly on domestic issues. This year is guaranteed to be about the Yellow Jacket protest movement, which was born on Facebook last year and has morphed into a broad gathering of anti-Macron activists who gather each weekend for rallies.

Le Pen has made clear she intends to campaign for Yellow Jacket protesters, whose list of demands include many from the National Rally. But so will the hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has professed his "fascination" for Yellow Jacket figurehead Eric Drouet, and Wauquiez.

What remains to be seen is whether the Yellow Jackets, who have no official leader, will form their own political group in the election. Polls show a Yellow Jacket party would net around 12 percent of votes — potentially stealing support from both the hard right and hard left.