Marine Le Pen has been barred from seeking public office for five years, with immediate effect, for embezzlement — a hammer blow to the far-right leader’s presidential hopes and a seismic shift for French politics. Although Ms Le Pen can appeal the verdict, such a move won’t suspend her ineligibility, which could rule her out of the 2027 presidential race.
The court ruling was both a political and judicial shock for France, hampering one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term, scheduled to last until 2027. Ms Le Pen herself wasn't present to hear the chief judge pronounce the sentence that threw her career into turmoil. By then, she had already left the courtroom after the judge first indicated she would be barred from office, without immediately stating the duration.
The sentence could prevent her from running for president in 2027, a scenario she has previously described as a “political death.”
Only an appeal ruling that overturns the ban on public office could restore her hopes of standing, but with the election just two years away, time is running out, and there’s no guarantee the appeals court would rule more favourably.
The verdict was a resounding defeat for Ms Le Pen's party. The judge also handed down guilty verdicts for embezzling public funds to eight other current or former members of her party who, like her, had served as European Parliament MPs.
Also convicted were 12 other people who had served as parliamentary aides for Ms Le Pen and what is now the National Rally party, formerly the National Front.
The judge said Ms Le Pen had been at the heart of “a system” her party used to siphon off EU parliament money.
While the judge noted that Ms Le Pen and the other co-defendants did not enrich themselves personally, the ruling described the embezzlement as “a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters.
From the front row of the court, Ms Le Pen initially showed no immediate reaction when the judge first declared her guilty.
She then abruptly left without warning, picking up her bag and striding out, her heels click-click-clicking on the hardwood floor, leaving disbelief in her wake.
The court sentenced Ms Le Pen to two years' imprisonment under house arrest, but it was the political ramifications of ineligibility that dealt the biggest blow to her foreseeable political future.
Ms Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations.
Ms Le Pen and her co-defendants denied wrongdoing. Ms Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.
During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, she argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate" and disenfranchise her supporters.
She told the panel of three judges: “There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election.
Ms Le Pen's seeming natural successor in the 2027 elections would be Jordan Bardella, her 29-year-old protégé who succeeded her at the helm of the party in 2021.
Ms Le Pen denied accusations she was at the head of the system meant to siphon off EU parliament money to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021. She argued instead that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aides paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the lawmakers, including some political work related to the party.
Hearings showed that some EU money was used to pay for Ms Le Pen’s bodyguard — who was once her father's bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant. Prosecutors requested a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility for Ms Le Pen. Ms Le Pen said she felt they were “only interested” in preventing her from running for president.
