Marine Le Pen found guilty of embezzlement, barred from running in 2027 France election

A French court found Marine Le Pen guilty on Monday in an embezzlement case, with a sentence that barred her from public office for five years with “immediate effect.”

The sentence prevents her from running for president for the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party in 2027.

Prosecutors also sentenced her to two years of house detention with an electronic bracelet, with two more years suspended. In addition, Le Pen was fined 100,000 euros ($154,000 Cdn).

Neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until her appeals are exhausted, but her five-year ban from running for office kicks in immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors, and will be lifted only if any appeal is upheld before the election. She retains her parliamentary seat.

Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years. The National Rally holds the most seats in the National Assembly after its performance in last year’s legislative elections, which forced Macron to build a governing coalition beyond his own party.

Le Pen and the officials from the party formerly known as the National Front were accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations.

Judge Benedicte de Perthuis, reading the verdict of the panel of three justices, said Le Pen had been “at the heart” of the scheme. The judge said that while Le Pen and other co-defendants didn’t enrich themselves personally, the embezzlement was “a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters. 

Le Pen repeatedly shook her head in disagreement as the guilty verdict was read. “Incredible,” she whispered at one point. 

The judge also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party who, like her, previously served as European Parliament lawmakers. 

Le Pen and other defendants can appeal, which would lead to another trial. 

Right-wing politicians slam verdict

During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, Le Pen argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and disenfranchise her supporters. 

“There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So … potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election,” she told the panel of three judges.

That kind of sentiment was immediately taken up by her supporters inside France and beyond.

Prominent right-wing Italian politician Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban condemned the verdict.

“Je suis Marine!” a post from Orban’s X account read.

The Kremlin also condemned the verdict in a statement.

Le Pen left the highrise Paris courthouse without stopping to speak to reporters and climbed into a car that drove her away.

The court also handed down guilty verdicts to 12 other people who served as parliamentary aides for Le Pen.

If Le Pen cannot run in 2027, her seeming natural successor would be Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé who succeeded her as party president in 2021.

“Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed,” Bardella said in a statement.

Le Pen had argued 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 Le Pen’s bodyguard — who was once her father’s bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father, co-founded the National Front in the 1970s and led it from being a fringe party to contesting the French election in a 2002 runoff.